The Punjab Health Sector Reform Program (PHSRP,
http://www.phsrp.punjab.gov.pk/) of Punjab Government's Health
Department has developed a project they call, "Monitoring the
Monitors". As the name implies, health monitors tasked with visiting
health facilities in their area will be required to enter data in an
ODK-enabled phone.
In their detailed "PHSRP - Monitoring the Monitors" whitepaper
(http://www.punjabmodel.gov.pk/dashboard/downloads/PHSRP%20-%20Monitoring%20the%20Monitors.pdf),
Program Director Farasat Iqbal says, "Our traditional monitoring
system had many weaknesses which we wanted to overcome. The practical
situation is that the current system is irregular and unreliable."
Their report goes on to note, "Along with recording indicators like
non-functional equipment, non-available medicines and absent staff,
the supervisors will take a self-photo that will be submitted along
with the data. The submitted data automatically pops up on a map in
real-time with GPS accuracy of five meters. This data can be monitored
by senior officials and back-end auditors.
These applications effectively help in solving two key issues: data
collection and field attendance. Conventionally, the field staff and
those who monitor them, (occasionally) fill in paper reports that are
sent to the head offices, entered into a database, and analyzed. This
process, even when done as per official guidelines, takes weeks to
generate the final reports. Unfortunately, the reality is that
official processes are fully implemented. Visits are irregular, data
is not recorded, or not submitted in an analyzable format, making
monitoring difficult.
With this mobile-based intervention, there is no need to fill in long
paper-based forms. Data is validated and entered directly into the
database automatically. Secondly, the requisition of taking
self-photos ensures that the form is filled in by the person himself.
Moreover, the phones have GPS which means that the exact location
where the data is entered is recorded along with the data."
The data PHSRP generates is available on their website at
http://www.punjabmodel.gov.pk/dashboard/androidMap. They also have a
(non-English) demo video of their form at http://youtu.be/Fd6Ilr89ii4.