Medics asked to use research in HIV programs
Mar 10, 2017
"It is important to use data as it tells us how you we are performing and keeps practitioners in check while carrying out their work, so as to achieve the global HIV/Aids targets.
Medical practitioners have been asked to use well researched information from recognized sources so as to deliver quality services in areas of HIV/Aids.
The call was made by Julius Sendaula, the monitoring and evaluation technical advisor, from School of Public Health.
This was during a regional Quality Improvement (QI) learning exchange meeting that has attracted participants from five countries of Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda.
The meeting that ends on Friday is aimed at exploring best practices, share challenges and innovations on how to use data for quality improvement in national HIV programs.
Some of the data that should be considered in this case is that collected and prepared by PEPFAR and epidemiologic surveys, according to Sendaula.
The director health quality international, Bruce Agins (left) and the commissioner planning in ministry of health Dr. Sarah Byakika (right) sharing a light moment during the regional quality improvement learning exchange meeting
"It is important to use data as it tells us how you we are performing and keeps practitioners in check while carrying out their work, so as to achieve the global HIV/Aids targets. One of the them is the 90 90 90 goal which aims at making sure that 90% of the population know their HIV staust,90% are on treatment and 90% have suppressed the virus to prevent further infections, explained Sendaula.
PEPFA is an HIV funding scheme from the US government which invests a lot of time in research and collecting actual data for their programs, that is why emphasis has been put on the use of quality information in the delivery of HIV/Aids programs.
He also called on health service providers to become more creative and innovative in "For the fund to continue working, so as to attract more funders, one must have sufficient data which can be used in the lobbying process," he added.
To ensure that health workers embrace the use of data, there will be interactive sessions which will help participants learn new strategies for advancing data use in national HIV quality programs from each other.
"The delegates are expected to share how various issues in HIV prevention have and can be aided by data to improve the quality of HIV care in the region. Discussion will also focus on custom innovations that have been used to bridge the HIV gap," explained Nancy Karunganwa from Makerere School of Public Health.
Areas that will be focused on in the meeting include ;linking population health data to improvement at the national level, building and maintaining systems for real-time data use to guide improvement, improving data quality; conducting data quality assessments, building knowledge management capacity for data reporting and dissemination and developing and using improvement for linkage.
To ensure that Ugandan health workers get to use data, the ministry of health is in the process of recruiting bio data statisticians to help in data capturing and monitoring so as to have enough and correct information in the health sector especially as far as HIV Aids is concerned according to Dr.Sarah Byakika, the commissioner for planning in the ministry of Health.
This learning exchange is organized by the MoH with support from CDC Uganda through a collaboration between Makerere School of Public Health, Ministry of Health and the University of San Francisco (UCSF).