3.2.2. Strengthening Health Information Systems to Routinely Capture Immunization Coverage and Ongoing Disease Surveillance

Despite challenges brought on by the pandemic, these countries continued to strengthen health information system capacities to capture and use routine immunization data for planning and implementation. CHAI provided technical support to EPI across all levels in Cambodia, Uganda, and Kenya to strengthen data management and review capacities to promote immunization data use for planning and decision making. By promoting a systemic approach that leverages existing data, underserved communities can be identified and necessary resources allocated for rapid course correction. In Cambodia, CHAI supported the development of a new visualization dashboard that provided easy access and review of coverage gaps at all levels (national, provincial, district, and service delivery point) to enable prompt follow-up and action. The dashboard was made available in English and the local language, Khmer, for ease of access and user-friendliness. In Kenya, CHAI was instrumental in supporting the Health Management Information System (HMIS) team in separating PIRI and RI indicators within the DHIS2 platform to enable clear performance monitoring for supplementary immunization activities. In Cameroon, CHAI supported the identification and characterization of zero-dose communities using triangulation of demographic, geographic, and immunization data. Through this effort, health areas with the highest risk or probability of zero-dose children were prioritized for targeted action. CHAI also supported mentoring activities to improve data completeness, timeliness, and quality into DHIS2, resulting in an increase of 18% in timeliness, 5% in data quality, and 5% in completeness in the Adamawa region in Cameroon. In Nigeria, to inform decision making, CHAI was instrumental in the roll out of the PowerBI tool for the visualization of real-time campaign immunization coverage and reach. In Uganda, CHAI strengthened identification of underserved areas within health facility catchment areas through monthly reviews of health facility immunization registration data, resulting in in ~50% increase in the number of children from underserved villages vaccinated against DTP3 and MR1 [7].
