Focus on: Data-Informed Decision Making

FocusDataDecisionMaking

Integrated mechanisms and processes for monitoring the safety of medicines are essential to a well-functioning pharmaceutical sector. The links below highlight recent SIAPS Program work in improving information systems to inform decisions.

SIAPS Tools
Learn how SIAPS has improved the quality and availability of information with a suite of electronic tools.

Success Story: Hastening Antiretroviral Medicines Dispensing in Namibia’s Public Health Facilities with the Electronic Dispensing Tool: Senior Pharmacist Assistant George Lukonga’s Experience
At the Katima Mulilo Hospital in the Zambezi region of Namibia, hundreds of patients are being treated with antiretroviral therapy (ART) on a daily basis. Managing patients’ adherence to antiretroviral therapy, retention rates, appointments, and medication history proved to be a challenge for health workers. This burden was addressed with technical support from the SIAPS Program staff on how to properly and effectively use the electronic dispensing tool (EDT) to manage both patients and ARVs.

News: SIAPS Presents on OSPSANTE and OSPSIDA at World Health Organization Francophone Technical Briefing Seminar on Medicine Policy 2016
The World Health Organization Department of Essential Medicines and Health Products invited SIAPS Program staff to participate in its annual French Technical Briefing Seminar, held 9-13 May 2016, in Geneva, Switzerland. SIAPS Principal Technical Advisor Seydou Doumbia delivered a presentation in which he shared the program’s approach to strengthening pharmaceutical information systems for decision making using the web-based tools, OSPSANTE and OSPSIDA.

Publication: Bangladesh Newsletter: E-TB Manager Improves Recording and Reporting for TB Control [page 7]
One of the most significant challenges for the National Tuberculosis Program (NTP) is maintaining accurate recording and up-to-date reporting of tuberculosis (TB) cases. Lack of reliable data weakens surveillance and performance, ultimately increasing the number of drug-resistant and multi-drug-resistant (MDR)-TB patients. To assess the needs of NTP’s information management system, SIAPS collaborated with MOHFW and, after an option analysis, NTP adopted the web-based e-TB Manager to better manage TB patients and medicines and generate key reports and indicators.

See last month’s focus on Pharmacovigilance
Learn about the SIAPS approach to pharmacovigilance in the context of health systems strengthening.