Is there any integrity in routine data?

Samuel shared some nitty-gritty on the processes involved in the documentation and report of malaria routine data. Several issues associated with reported data e.g. under-reporting and over-reporting, differences between registers and aggregated reports, some of which are attributed to illegible handwriting on the register to capture right data, incomplete filling of reports and untrained staff that are responsible for the filling and documentation of malaria routine data leading to inconsistency between variables of data were discussed.

Quality issues with reported data, majorly completeness and discrepancies in the reported data, were highlighted to uncover the root-cause of over-reporting of malaria routine data. The presenter showed that some of these are due, majorly, to arithmetic or counting errors.

Some of the major deductions to address the issues as stated by the presented include the need for modelers to explore opportunities in contributing to the improvements in the health system, digitalization of health service delivery, supporting facilities to ensure that data validation teams are functional and active amongst others. It was surprising to discover that the antenatal care records seem to be more accurate compared to malaria cases data.