By Kelly Sawyer, Technical Associate – TB
An 18-point anonymous, global satisfaction survey of over 2,000 users of e-TB Manager from 9 countries yielded a 76% response rate. A web-based tool for managing all the information needed by national tuberculosis (TB) control programs, e-TB Manager integrates data across all aspects of TB control.
The user satisfaction survey was the first of its kind organized in collaboration with national TB programs and specific implementing partners in 9 of the 10 countries using e-TB Manager. The response rate of 76% significantly exceeds the typical response rate ranging from 20% to 50%. “This indicates the very high engagement of e-TB Manager users from national decision-making level to health-facility level, and suggests the validity of our results and their generalizability to all users of the system,” says Niranjan Konduri , SIAPS Principal Technical Advisor who led the global survey.
The survey indicated that 77% of users agree that they can find the information needed for patient management and 80% of users find e-TB Manager reliable. “If you can find patient information faster compared to paper-based systems, it helps you to improve patient management. One can easily make decisions and compute frequency of suspected adverse drug reactions in e-TB Manager and promptly take action,” says Dr. Luis Gustavo do Valle Bastos, Global Technical Lead for e-TB manager and member of the WHO’s Task Force on Digital Health for END-TB Strategy.
The survey findings support the US Government’s Global TB Strategy 2015-2019 as it relates to patient-based electronic recording and reporting systems as well as global surveys to inform programs and policies.
The health information priority objective in USAID’s 2015-2019 Vision for Health Systems Strengthening aims to create a culture of evidence-based decision making. The survey findings, which line up with that objective, show that e-TB Manager’s contributions to improvements in patient management and expansion of health information systems are “vital for achievement of USAID and partner countries’ shared goals.”
