The Enugu State Government has said it will use electronic collection to improve its routine immunisation data quality as well as other health indicators in the state.
Executive Secretary of Enugu State Primary Health Care Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), Dr. George Ugwu, said this, yesterday, in Enugu at a co-creation workshop with immunisation stakeholders on electronic collection and transmission of immunisation data in the state.
Ugwu noted that electronic collection of routine immunisation data would make the data reliable and give policy-makers accurate information for effective planning of routine immunisation and other health issues.
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He said: “The agency is not only doing its routine work but also carrying out research to find better ways of doing its work.
“We were lucky to be selected to carry out research on routine immunisation data collection being funded by the World Health Organisation and through the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) special research group on health.
“The research, to be carried out at pilot stage, is to find out how we can make the collection of immunisation data and its transmission to be better and of more impact.
“So that henceforth, all collected data can be key to decision-making and help our policy makers to take impactful and growth decision on routine immunisation and other health issues
“It will help us to know the quantity of vaccines required, who and who had been immunised, at what time, place and having accurate recording, thus improving the quality of data and ease of transmission.”
Ugwu said that the agency was envisaging electronic collection of data and real-time transmission from localities to a central server in the agency’s headquarters in Enugu in the near future.
Earlier, Prof. Benjamin Uzochukwu, Lead Mentor in the programme, said that the research team wanted to deepen discussion among immunisation data collection officers to see the practicability of improving the data collection electronically.
Uzochukwu, who is a professor of Medicine in the UNN, said: “We are here to mentor you and see that you understand the essence of the migration from the analog to the digital space of your work,” he said.
Also, the State Lead in Monitoring and Evaluation in the agency, Mr. Uche Ezema, who stated that 25 routine data collection officers within local council and state levels are participating in the exercise, said that the training workshop had been designed on a train-the-trainer basis.
He said that the Open Data Kit (ODK) software would be made available for those running the pilot of the programme in some selected councils.
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