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Data Use at the Facility Level, Online Discussion, June 2011

Around the world, data are collected at health facilities about the populations they serve, their health needs and the services provided to meet those needs. These data are used to populate reports that are required by the varied national health programs. Often, once these data are sent to the higher level in the health system, they are not considered or used by the facilities themselves or their district/regional management to make decisions about future service delivery.

While providers may use data for individual patient management, health managers and providers rarely analyze the data they collect to monitor service delivery trends or to assess problems and identify new strategies for improving health services. As a result, many health systems fail to fully link evidence to decisions and suffer from a decreased ability to respond to the priority needs of the communities they serve.

The "Using Data to Improve Health Programs: Strategies to increase data use at the service delivery point" discussion solicited input from DataUseNet members on their experiences using interventions, tools used and strategies implemented to improve data use at the service delivery point.