Piloting of GHC developed tools
During the Promoting and using in humanitarian crisis the Global Health Cluster proposed core health indicators and related tools for data collection and analysis workshop. Nairobi 19-20 November 2009 it was decided to pilot the roll out of the tools in pilot countries. A mission to Southern Sudan was carried out directly after the Workshop in November 2009, and a mission to North Kivu, DRC took place in January 2010. The missions focused on piloting the Health Resources Availability Mapping System (HeRAMS), HIS (Health Information System) and the Health events Analysis & Nutrition Data Surveillance (HANDS).
In Southern Sudan, the health sector partners were invited to a meeting to discuss and identify information needs. The existing information systems used in the region were analyzed to see the extent to which they managed to identify gaps in the health response. The outcome concluded that they did not allow for a comprehensive assessment and monitoring. Therefore, it was recommended that current systems be complemented with an adapted version of HeRAMS - including an extended section on neglected tropical diseases, which are prevalent and often endemic in Southern Sudan.
In DRC, twelve health cluster partners participated in a two-day workshop organized in the North Kivu region. The workshop was one outcome of the previous GHC workshop on tools and indicators in Nairobi, November 2009. The Kivu workshop concentrated on identifying information needs, introducing the indicators and adapting the tools to complement existing systems, particularly the SNIS (National Health Information System).
The information needs are established by the GHC Core Set of Indicators, and the workshop analysed existing information systems and linkage with chosen indicators (ie answering, ’Which system provides which information?’) with highest priority given to the National systems. Gaps were identified and global health cluster tools tuned accordingly.