Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) at KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme (KWTRP)

Implementing Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) tools and processes for hybrid paper-to-digital data processes in public health facilities

• With 50+ Ministries of Health globally working with DHISv2, optimising the use of DHISv2 information is necessary for routine clinical surveillance and health service planning and delivery to influence policy and programming of action. Due to the severe resource constraints facing Kenyan public hospitals, it is unlikely that electronic health records can be implemented to reasonably support routine hospital care in the short- and mid-term while adequately addressing the varying needs of the different types of clinicians. Almost all facility-based patient-level records are paper-based.
• A hybrid paper-to-digital data pipeline using AI/OCR technologies that starts with clinicians filling out paper records and ends with the information in DHISv2 is necessary for generating insights needed for routine decision-making. Such data pipelines are important since they can process clinical data in multiple formats from distributed data sources with minimal resources and effort while enhancing the health system's responsiveness to population needs. The rationale is that better quality data will increase the use of these data in decision-making and ultimately improve health service delivery and health outcomes. However, there are challenges and opportunities in implementing clinical data pipelines. Still, practical implementation experiences are seldom reported, arguably due to successful implementation examples of paper-to-digital data pipelines in public hospitals in contexts similar to Kenya.
• The objective of this internship is to explore ways to implement a technically feasible paper-to-digital data pipeline with integrated data quality control mechanisms for use in public health facilities.