August 23, (THEWILL) – The Enugu State Government has said it will imbibe the use of electronic collection to improve its routine immunisation data quality, as well as other health indicators in the state.
Executive Secretary of Enugu State Primary Health Care Development Agency (ENS-PHCDA), Dr. George Ugwu, gave the hint on Wednesday in Enugu at a Co-creation Workshop with Immunisation Stakeholders on electronic collection and transmission of immunisation data in the state.
The workshop was sub-themed, ‘Assessing the Use of Mobile Electronic Means in the Capture and Transmission of Immunisation Data Using the Open Data Kit (ODK) in Enugu State, Nigeria.’
Ugwu noted that electronic collection of routine immunisation data would make the data reliable and give policy makers accurate information for effective planning of routine immunisation and other health issues.
He said, “The agency is not only doing its routine work, but also carrying out research to find out better ways of doing our work.
“We were lucky to be selected to carry out research on routine immunisation data collection being funded by the World Health Organisation and through the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) special research group on health.
“The research, to be carried out at pilot stage, is to find out how we can make the collection of immunisation data and its transmission to be better and of more impact.
“So that henceforth, all collected data can be key to decision making and help our policy makers to take impactful and growth decision on routine immunisation and other health issues
“It will help us to know the quantity of vaccines required, who and who has been immunised, at what time, place and having accurate recording; thus improving the quality of data and ease of transmission”.
Ugwu said the agency was envisaging electronic collection of data and real-time transmission from localities to a central server in the agency’s headquarters in Enugu in the near future.
“This move will also save us time, cost of transportation and human interference as well as give us accurate quality assurance on the data being transmitted in real-time,” he said.
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