Abstract
Background. Routine health information system (RHIS) quality assurance has become an important issue, not only because of its significance in promoting high standard of patient care, but also because of its impact on government budgets for the maintenance of health services. Routine health information system comprises healthcare data collection, compilation, storage, analysis, report generation, and dissemination on routine basis at the various healthcare settings. The data from RHIS give a representation of health status, health services, and health resources. The sources of RHIS data are normally individual health records, records of services delivered, and records of health resources. Using reliable information from routine health information systems is fundamental in the healthcare delivery system. Quality assurance practices are measures that are put in places to ensure the health data that are collected meet required quality standards. Routine health information system quality assurance practices ensure that data that are generated from the system are fit for use. This study considered quality assurance practices in the RHIS processes. Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted in eight health facilities in Tarkwa Submunicipal health service in the western region of Ghana. The study involved routine quality assurance practices among the 90-health staff and management selected from facilities in Tarkwa Submunicipal who collect or use data routinely from 24th December, 2019, to 20th January, 2020. Results. Generally, Tarkwa Submunicipal health service appears to practice quality assurance during data collection, compilation, storage, analysis, and dissemination. The results show some achievement in quality control performance in report dissemination (77.6%), data analysis (68.0%), data compilation (67.4%), report compilation (66.3%), data storage (66.3%), and collection (61.1%). Conclusions. Even though Tarkwa Submunicipal health directorate engages some control measures to ensure data quality, there is the need to strengthen the process to achieve the targeted percentage of performance (90.0%). There was significant shortfall in quality assurance practices performance especially during data collection, with respect to the expected performance.
Highlights
In recent years, Routine health information system (RHIS) quality assurance has become an important topic, because of its significance in promoting high standard of patient care, and because of its impact on government budgets for the maintenance of health services [1]
We considered quality assurance practices (QAPs) in the following RHIS stages of data management: data collection, compilation, storage, analysis, reporting, and dissemination [5, 7]
Observed RHIS quality assurance practices (QAPs) at the facilities indicated that 87.5% kept a copy of report sent to the Municipal Health Directorate (MHD), 75.0% of the facilities always checked data accuracy, 62.5% compared data with submunicipality targets, and 50.0% had tally
Summary
RHIS quality assurance has become an important topic, because of its significance in promoting high standard of patient care, and because of its impact on government budgets for the maintenance of health services [1]. Ese challenges are Advances in Public Health related to the quality assurance of record documentation and to the collection of healthcare statistics at all levels, from the largest hospital to the smallest clinic or Community-Based Health Planning and Services (in the case of Ghana). Routine health information system (RHIS) quality assurance has become an important issue, because of its significance in promoting high standard of patient care, and because of its impact on government budgets for the maintenance of health services. E study involved routine quality assurance practices among the 90-health staff and management selected from facilities in Tarkwa Submunicipal who collect or use data routinely from 24th December, 2019, to 20th January, 2020. Tarkwa Submunicipal health service appears to practice quality assurance during data collection, compilation, storage, analysis, and dissemination. Even though Tarkwa Submunicipal health directorate engages some control measures to ensure data quality, there is the need to strengthen the process to achieve the targeted percentage of performance (90.0%). ere was significant shortfall in quality assurance practices performance especially during data collection, with respect to the expected performance
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