Gavi Liberia PEF/TCA 2021

During the past year, JSI has worked closely with Health Monitoring, Evaluation and Research Unit (HMER) of the MOH and EPI to conduct a data and systems review. This review provided fundamental insight and analysis that shaped the systems assessment and data quality review, the results of which will feed into and form a foundation for the DIP to address data quality issues. The systems assessment was organized to measure the capacity of the data management and reporting functions of the MOH health information system (HIS), to produce good quality data. It was also organized to measure the extent to which the key elements of the system adheres to a set of minimum acceptable standards. It addressed five health areas: maternal health, malaria, immunization, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis.

Some initial insights from the systems assessment are bucketed around five components of the data management and reporting system and validate many already understood or intuitive insights:

• Availability of trained staff/human resource capacity. There is limited or no training for health providers in data management, and even data managers at county and district levels have limited knowledge on data management. Systems that have been established for data review and improvement (i.e., district data teams) are not fully functional.
• Availability of guidelines. Generally, all facilities had HIS guidelines although not all staff realized these documents were in easy reach for their use.
• Availability of tools and reporting forms. Most facilities had the required data collection and reporting forms; however, the proper management of the tools is a major challenge.
• Supervision and feedback. Despite supervision visits being implemented at facility levels, data quality issues were not significantly taken into account in most of the reports.
• Data analysis and information use. It was evident that the county level M&E team conducts data analysis, and monitoring charts (especially for immunization program) are widely in use at the facility level. More can be done for data use for planning.