Digitization of quality improvement efforts for improved program accountability

The Makerere University School of Public  Health  –  Monitoring and Evaluation Technical    Support (MakSPH-METS)   Program,   together with the  Health  Information  Systems Program  (HISP)  in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) – Standards, Compliance, Accreditation and Patient Protection (SCAPP) department finalized development of the National Integrated Quality  Improvement  (QI)  database (https://cqi.health.go.ug).

The online database aims to streamline Quality  Improvement implementation at all health sector levels in the country and tracks both qualitative and quantitative innovations and projects from the point of enrollment, identifies improvement due to changes, indicates progress, and measures performance all the way to summarizing observations.

With this innovation, MoH will be empowered to monitor Quality  Improvement investments nationally and inherently improve the quality of healthcare provided at health facilities. The database has a user-friendly dashboard that helps users to manipulate data at all levels to guide decision-making.

This intervention will promote the utilization of electronic-based platforms to monitor and improve accountability for healthcare quality improvement interventions in the country.

The national ToT was opened by the Commissioner of Health Services, Dr. Martin Ssendyona who emphasized the need to track and report on QI work. He reassured participants of the commitment of MoH to support the implementation of this database.

The training was attended by Ministry of Health officials from the SCAPP department, Division of Health Information, Division of Information Communications Technology (ICT), and quality improvement officers and focal persons from all the 16 regional referral hospitals in the country.

The rollout of the CQI database is designed to run from the central level (headquarters) to Regional Referral Hospitals, District health offices, and finally to health facilities.

METS plan to support the rollout of the system across the country and this was kickstarted with the training of national trainers (ToT) which took place at Ridar Hotel, Seeta, Mukono District in January.