Assessing and improving data quality from community health workers: a successful intervention in Neno, Malawi (original) (raw)

2013, Public Health Action

CHWs generate household reports; Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) then aggregate across all household reports to generate reports for each CHW in their area. These CHW reports are then entered into an electronic database from which monthly reports are generated for PIH and Ministry of Health (MoH) management. As with other health programs, CHW data could play a critical role in supporting implementation by assisting in identifying and addressing programmatic gaps. 2-4 However, there were numerous concerns over the quality of the data due to the large volume and complex aggregation pathways. An informal inspection revealed several instances in which chart data were aggregated incorrectly, leading to signifi cant inaccuracies in the fi nal reports presented to MoH/PIH. In this article, we describe our system for the formal assessment of the quality of CHW reports; we provide detail on the development and implementation of interventions to address poor data quality; and we conclude with a discussion on the impact of improved data quality on the ability to successfully manage the program and suggestions of extending lessons learned to other programs.