Uganda Health Information Project Pilot Outcomes


(While a final report is in process, these are the results of the cost/benefit study and a first round survey of users.  We expcet a complete report on the project by December.)

 

COST EFFECTIVENSS STUDY REPORT  FOR THE PDA DATA CAPTURE AND TRANSMISSION

 

   

The following team of professionals both in health economics and practitioners in the health sector was formed for the purpose of undertaking the study.  We thank them for their work.
 

Evalaution Team:

  1. Dr. Grace Murindwa (Planning Division, Ministry of Health)/Team Leader.
  2. Dr. Fred Kakongoro Muhumuza (Research Fellow, Makerere University Economic Policy Research Center) - Secretary.
  3. Dr. Eddie Mworozi (Consultant/Honorary Lecturer Faculty of Medicine, Makerere University) – Member.
  4. Dr. Sarah Asimwe (HMIS Section, Ministry of Health) - Member
  5. Mr. Fred Kakaire (Chief Executive Officer) - Member
  6. Mr Isaac Shinyenkwa (Makerere University Economic Policy Research Center) – Member.
  7. Mr. Amos Nzabanita (Bio-statistician, Ministry of Health) – Member.
  8. Mr David Walter Dongo (UHIN - Project Administrator/Accountant)
 

5.3        Report Conclusions

"The conclusion is that, over the short time period of eight months for which the PDA project was being piloted, it was cost effective to the magnitude of 0.242 or offered 24.2 percent more benefits per unit of spending. It is highly likely that the value could get much higher with time since the period of analysis included learning costs that are bound to decline with time. More so, a scale up of the PDA system to the same level as the manual system is likely to generate economies of scale that would further raise the benefits and cut down costs.

More so, the benefits of the PDA system could have been higher had it not been for the sole reason that it was a pilot in only a few areas (mainly data entry and transmission) but not exclusively analysis. In fact some staff that had gained much confidence in the system had used it for analysis and recommended discarding of the traditional system. Thus, if the subsystem had been broadened to cover data analysis and information generation for ‘real usage’ by the health personnel at all levels, more benefits could have been recorded."

Full Report

 

HANDHELD COMPUTERS USER NEEDS SURVEY IN MBALE AND RAKAI DISTRICTS, JULY 2004

DR KALAMYA NAMONYO JULIUS, UHIN

  Introduction:

Due to the increasing demand of end users of hand held computers, for relevant and more content, it is imperative to exactly find out from the users what kind of information they want. To achieve this we conducted a simple and quick survey in the two pilot districts to get the required information that will tailor the kind of content sent to users.
   

Respondents:The respondents were current users of hand held computers in the two Districts. A total of 78 respondents were interviewed, 40 from Mbale and 38 from Rakai with 3key informants (2 DDHS’ and one medical superintendent.

Sample size:

Rakai: 38 PDA users were interviewed in the four HSDs of Rakai District.

Mbale: 40 PDA users were interviewed in the two HSDs of Mbale District.

Data collection: Data was collected using a semi-structured questionnaire, administered by the content manager with the assistance of the UHIN field staffs.
  Key Findings:
  • Of the respondents, 53(67.9%) said they had some source of medical information and other news, while 25(32.1%) did not have any source of this information at all. The sources of information mentioned included journals, newsletters, libraries, radio, CME and friends.
  • Majority of 88.5% of respondents are using PDAs to send or receive information and 94.9% of the respondents would like to receive medical or other relevant information by using the PDAs.

 

  • Of the respondents 69.2% would like to receive full articles as opposed to summarize or journal articles.

 

  • When asked on how often they would want to receive the information, most 52.5% want to receive information once a week, while others want daily 29.5%, bi-weekly 10.3%, thrice a week 7.7%.
  • All the respondents 100% are willing to give feed back on the information received to help in improvements in the type of content sent.
  • The average amount of money that PDA user are willing to pay is 7,442  (or $5.70US) per month as contribution to the service. The contribution that can be made ranged from 100-40,000/= per month. ( up to $30 US)
  • This willingness to pay was corroborated by what the two directors thought of the contributions as “once the PDAs and Jacks are in place even the district can contribute towards the running of the project because it has been very useful to us” DDHS Rakai.
  • “To sustain this project is something that we can do through the use of our PHC funds since our leadership here is interested like the chairman health committee and the ACAO in charge of health” DDHS Mbale.
  • The majority of respondents are interested in content in the

following areas:

        1. Communicable diseases (87.7%)
        2. Maternal health (82.1%)
        3. HIV/AIDS (80.8%)
        4. ARV Drugs (80.8%)
        5. PMTCT (79.5%)
        6. Diarrhea diseases (76.9%)
        7. Malaria (75.6%)
        8. Public health (74.4%)
    A second survey is planned for November 2004.

Full Report