Contributed by Victoria Malek Pascha, Member of the IS4H Team and network of experts
Real World Evidence and Big Data is seen as the future of medical research and a key tool in policy planning, but many nations struggle to adapt their systems to effectively capture this data in a usable manner.
In 2005 the World Health Assembly through its resolution WHA58.28 on eHealth urged Member States "to consider drawing up a long-term strategic plan for developing and implementing eHealth services…to develop the infrastructure for information and communication technologies for health…to promote equitable, affordable and universal access to their benefits."
PAHO, as part of its role and in line with the WHO’s Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 offers expert guidance and advice; but a key problem in providing this advice is tailoring it to the needs of individual member states and Ministries of Health. Fully understanding the level of sophistication and advancement of individual countries is a large undertaking and, as many countries are engaged in their own development programs, risks being out of date by the time it is completed. In the current context of pandemic, we are urged to take a leaf from the technology sector and adopt a more agile mindset in data gathering. What is needed is not a full understanding of how and which data is captured in a national health system but enough of an idea to be able to identify problem areas and tailor the advice given.
At the EIH Department we developed a "Critical Data Gathering Tool" aimed to rapidly assess the capacity of critical data gathering in health service delivery points. This tool is part of the support for pandemic response operations and is designed to tackle the undiagnosed problem of a “miss match” existing between high-level modelling teams’ data needs and the type and quality of data provided by those capturing it on the ground. In other words, it is designed to identify the capacity gap within the international, national and subnational data needs; and the ability to provide reliable and constructive data.
It is a short, 3 page survey that aims to gather an executive level view of maturity in 5 key areas. This is done with a short series of questions to prompt a self-assessment of which level (1-4) the system is currently in. Taken together the tool allows institutions to provide PAHO a rapid assessment of the maturity level of their own data quality and gives PAHO the knowledge to provide useful guidance. The short nature of the survey and high level of the questions ensure that reliable estimates can be gathered quickly enough to be relevant and without placing a strain on local health systems. At the end, there’s a guide on what each score means and what areas to focus interventions on based on the level of maturity scored. End users are thought to be both health service delivery points as a self-assessment tool, and central institutions for health service evaluations.
It is something relatively simple but very powerful to help us at PAHO perform situation analysis and develop policies that move us in the right direction. By familiarizing us with these sort of evidence-generating tools, we'll undoubtedly improve the quality of care and health service delivery, the precision of policy making, the strength and resilience of health systems and the overall population health and well-being.
