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The health ministry has introduced a digitalized data portal/dashboard, allowing VHTs to use phones for efficient data collection, preventing data loss. The initiative, supported by the government, involves distributing 8,350 phones to VHTs.

Kalangala – Village Health Teams (VHTs) have long maintained extensive databases while gathering information on clients with HIV/AIDS, expectant mothers, and children, among other groups.

Nevertheless, these registers are frequently subjected to unfavorable weather conditions, such as rain and fires that break out in wooden structures at landing sites, which may cause data loss.

The late registration submission is another problem. The delivery of these to the medical facilities takes months, during which time they must gather data to power the ministry’s data portal.

According to Kibanga village’s VHT, Denis Mutebi, their homes are vulnerable to fires, which causes the loss of these registers and the data they contain.

According to him, “in addition to fire, we carry them in boats where rain finds us, losing them, and by the time they dry up, some data is always erased.”

The health ministry has now launched a digitalized data portal/dashboard whereby each VHT will be able to use a phone to collect the necessary health data from communities in an effort to streamline data collection.

The ministry will be able to detect disease outbreaks earlier than it has in the past thanks to this phone-based system.

With the assistance of the government, the ministry’s Dr. Meddy Rutayisire informed New Vision Online that 8,350 phones have been distributed to various VHTs across various districts thus far.

To prevent data duplication, Rutasiyire explained, “this is an integrated program where every partner who has access to the dashboard will be able to monitor what is being done from different communities and who has done it.”

This dashboard was introduced by Dr. Diana Atwine, permanent secretary of the health ministry, on Monday at the start of the second annual all-partners retreat, which is a five-day event that takes place in Kalangala district.

Dr. Speciosa Naigaga Wandira Kazibwe, the senior presidential advisor on population and health, stated that the government has been spending a lot of money on ghost projections due to incomplete and delayed data reporting.

“A lot of people associate data with mathematics, and here’s where we fall short because, when you look at the data, you can always tell which population it belongs to, which is why some of us have found it difficult to delve into the specifics of how the data is produced,” the speaker continued.

The dashboard facilitates data submission from community health assistants by not requiring internet access during submission.

Additionally, the ministry anticipates that three out of ten VHTs will have these phones by 2025.