Utilization of Routine Health Data in Decision Making by Management Teams in Selected Level 4 Hospitals in Nakuru County, Kenya
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Date
2024-11
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Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Health data are the relevant information routinely collected in health institutions by
health workers. The health population needs can only be identified through data
collection, collation and analysis as this provides information that should be used by
the hospital management teams (HMT), in prioritizing resource allocation for service
delivery, health work force, essential medicines, and governance. In most hospitals,
these crucial managerial responsibilities seem to be lacking the support of data use for
evidenced decisions, leading to poor service delivery and unnecessary referral of
patients, yet the same hospitals, task their health workers with data collection and
monthly submission of reports. In light of this, this cross-sectional study, assessed the
utilization of routine health data for decision-making by HMTs of the selected level 4
hospitals in Nakuru County; Molo, Subukia, Olenguruone, and Naivasha sub-county
hospital. This was achieved by determining the extent of use of the data collected for
decision-making, examining data quality and identifying organizational factors
influencing the utilization of routine health data in decision-making. The study
population was 146 Hospital management team members, selected by use of the
census sampling method. The study used three data collection tools; the questionnaire
and the interview schedule. An observation checklist was used to identify the
presence or absence of list of items representing quality data and evidence of data. A
pre-test was conducted on a group of 15 hospital management team members (10% of
the sample size) from the Langa-Langa sub-county hospital. A Cronbach reliability
coefficient of 0.72 was achieved for each of the constructs and thus considered
reliable. Analysis for Descriptive and inferential statistics was done by utilizing
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The study found that
Nakuru county had an average data utilization index of 62.9%, good use and that the
accuracy of data collected, as well as the use of registers as a data collection tool were
significantly associated with the use of Health data at a p-value of 0.025 and 0.043
respectively. The study recommended that the CHMT and HMT train, mentor, and
empower health managers and all health workers on data management, data
integration in policy development, standardize data collecting tools and data use
through SOPs for all health facilities, develop a data quality assessment tool and
provide support towards evidence-based interventions
Description
A Research Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Public Health (Epidemiology and Disease Control) in the School of Health Sciences, Kenyatta University, November 2024
Supervisors:
1.George Otieno
2.Ramadhan Mawenzi