By Abooluwa Famakinwa, Akure
As part of strategy to generate quality and accurate data, the Ondo State Government through the Saving One Million Lives For Result has trained Health Management Information System Officers in the State.
While declaring open the 3 day training for HMIS Officers of the 18 LGA’ s Secondary and Tertiary Health Facilities in the State, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Wahab Adegbenro said the training was designed to scale up the skills of HMIS officers in the State so that they can perform better.
Dr. Adegbenro said the training which was meant to elicit better performance in the generation of accurate and quality data is apt as the state is just coming out of a data falsification saga which had cost the state about 1.2 m Dollars.
He warned that the state will not allow a repeat of such, as the era of data falsification for political reasons is a thing of the past in the State.
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The Health Commissioner charged the Officers to take the training very seriously and afterwards ensure they they put down data correctly, accurately and with all honesty ,as data generated henceforth, must represent the reality on ground.
The Saving One Million Lives For Result Program Manager, Dr Abiola Ogunenika gave insight into what will be required of the State in the National Health Facilities Survey which is just around the corner.
She gave background information on the SOML program, looking at its six pillars and how it has faired in the state and what can be done to improve the performance of the state which will bring more funds to the state to improve the health sector.
Doing an overview of HMIS in the State, the Deputy Director Planning Research and Statistics of the State Ministry of Health ,Dr Issac Aladeniyi said Health Information is key to Public Health, as the right Information will bring about the right action.
In his words, HMIS is the link that that puts the health sector together, hence the need to generate quality data that will be used for planning, decision making, spending,among others.
The DPR&S, Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr Yetunde Olagbuji took participants through the rudiments of quality data and how it can be generated.
Some qualities of good data in her words are : accuracy, timeliness, completeness, reliability, cost effectiveness among others.
The State HMIS Officer, Mrs Dorcas Johnson who took participants on tools of data collection and the need for timeliness, took them through a practical session on National Health Management Information System 2013, District Health Information System, General Attendance Register, Out Patient Department Register ,Antenatal Care Registrar among others.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Permanent Secretary, Dr Dipo Durojaye said under the Health Data Consultative Committee activities, incentives were introduced for best Local Governments but it was noticed that there were still some challenges militating against early reporting, hence the need for the training.
Dr Durojaye urged participants to take the training seriously as the level of seriousness will be reflected in their reportage, while also imploring them to cascade the training to others not present at the training.
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