eTIQH: Electronic tool to improve quality of health

In collaboration with the Novartis Foundation, AKDN dHRC has developed an Electronic Tool to Improve Quality of Health (eTIQH), to address the lack of access to quality primary healthcare and improve patient health outcomes.

eTIQH acts as a digital tool that supports leaders to improve the quality of services offered by healthcare providers. The tool assists health system managers to monitor health facilities under their supervision, and allows them to provide performance feedback to health workers in real-time.

The platform consists of two interfaces: an Android-based mobile application and a web portal. These tools assist with organisational assessments, feedback, and evidence-based planning, and aim to address the following questions:

• Physical environment and equipment: do health facilities have sufficient resources, and provide a supportive environment to enable providers to fulfil the job expectations placed on them?
• Job expectations: do providers know what is expected from them in terms of service delivery?
• Professional knowledge and skills: do health providers have sufficient knowledge and skills to fulfil job expectations?
• Management and administration of the facility: do health facilities have a sound management system that provides supportive supervision and feedback to providers and the community?
• Staff motivation: are providers motivated to fulfil expectations?
• Client satisfaction: are community expectations of health service performance met?

As data is uploaded from the mobile application, statistical reports are generated automatically on the supervisor’ web portal. These reports are accessible by health system managers and other stakeholders from the web portal to aid evidence-based planning and management. The development of the application was completed in 2019, after which it was handed over to the Novartis Foundation.