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
2023
Authors
Kagwiri, Mary
Otieno, George
Mawenzi, Ramadhan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
IAJHMN
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 that
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, the
aim of this cross-sectional study, was to
assess 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 hospitals. This was achieved by
determining the extent of use of the data
collected for decision-making and
examining data quality and identifying
organizational factors, influencing use of
routine health data in decision making. The
target population of the study was 156
Hospital management team members,
selected by use of census sampling method.
The study used two data collection tools;
the questionnaire and the interview
schedule. An observation checklist was
used to identify presence or absence of list
of items representing quality data and
evidence of data. A pilot study was
conducted on a group of 17 hospital
management team members (10% of the
sample size) from Langa-Langa hospital. A
Cronbach reliability coefficient of 0.72 was
achieved for each of the construct and thus
considered reliable. Analysis for
Descriptive and inferential statistics were
done using Statistical Package for the
Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. The
study found that Nakuru county has an
average data utilization index of 62.9%,
good use, and that accuracy of data
collected as well as use of registers as a data
collection tool were significantly associated
with use of Health data at a p-value of 0.025
and 0.043 respectively. This study may act
as a reference for informing the county
government, on the status of the national
governments’ initiative and the capacity of
the hospital managers in sub county
hospitals in data management for
appropriate intervention. The findings may
also act as a spring of literature for
researchers to do auxiliary studies about
routine data consumption for decision
making at points of data collection.
Description
Article
Keywords
Routine Health Data, Decision-Making by Management Teams
Citation
Kagwiri, M., Otieno, G., Mawenzi, R. (2023). Utilization of routine health data in decision-making by management teams in selected level 4 hospitals in Nakuru County, Kenya. International Academic Journal of Health, Medicine and Nursing, 2(1), 314-340.