In this discussion thread, feel free to ask questions related to the What’s next for DHIS2? session of the 2020 DHIS2 Digital Annual Conference. You can post your questions ahead of, during, or after the session. The panellists will check this thread for questions, and select some for responding to in the session, or follow up after the session has ended. Feel free to respond to other questions or add to them if you have something to follow up with.
The recording of this session is available on our YouTube channel.
Our goal is to have a release of the Capture app with Tracker functionality by the time of the 2.36 release. What that means in terms of functionality included still needs to be planned, but it is what we are working towards.
Hi George, managing a master facility list requires codified work practices and staff who are responsible for making these kinds of changes. There are already tools in DHIS2 for registering org units with locations, staff, etc. The inclusion of new services or a change in the hierarchy level would need to be managed by the team responsible for this data.
Hi Farai. Unfortunately, there is no specified timeline yet. For some of the easier features, you could potentially start seeing functionality in the coming releases. For the comprehensive DHIS2 MFL offering, it will not be in 2021, but sometime after.
Hi @Mbevi, as a user, i think this is an interesting question. Can you elaborate on what exactly it is you are looking for? More what Mike mentioned in regards to the management of changes, or actual technical features, like temporal attributes or alternative org unit hierarchies for example?
A: There is documentation on how to use the generic data quality tools available here: Home - DHIS2 Documentation
In Addition, there is the WHO Data Quality app, which is aligned to WHO’s Data Quality Review Framework Data collection tools - WHO
The WHO DQ App manual is being updated and will be added to docs.dhis2.org, but you can find the manual for this tool developed by Statistics Norway here: Manual for the DHIS2 quality tool - SSB
I mean if an active facility status changes along the way,and its still operational.
maybe it started as a dispensary then HC then district hospital.How can one know that at a particular time this facility didn’t offer certain services in order to differentiate missing data from true zero values? Are there time stamps for that in DHIS2?
Thanks
Thank you for the great effort and the continuous support!
One of the main problem that faces us in DHIS2 is selecting multi options for the same data element (like the diagnosis).
Similar and more complex problem: tracking medicine which is choosing the medicine and add the amount based on the prescription, if they are two data elements (option set) and number so it’s hard to track them.
What I did and worked is adding the medicine list as data elements (Number), so I could track medicine from the warehouse to the health center to the patient, but it’s a big load on the form, so please take this in consideration.
Hi George, yes, this is one of the trickier aspects for the analytics side of MFL. We need to come up with some clever ways to ensure that as the user goes back in time to look at historical data, that it continues to be an apples to apples comparison, and that changes in services (or the closing or opening of sites), is represented in a clear way.
Thanks Abdulkaarim, it’s good to get more input. With regards to multioptions for the same data element, this is a common request and will be addressed. It is one of those simple functionalities that turns out to be more complicated than expected in the architecture. Right now the easiest way to deal with it is the yes only type of data element, with a data element per option. Of course, this is not ideal in terms of the user experience, and requires some planning from the analytics side to consume the information.
For the medicine tracking piece, this is something that is on our radar as we get further into the world of logistics. Our goal is to be able to match health service dispensed-to-user data to logistics issued data, so that we can do automated supply calculations, as well as offer much better transparency about when, where, and to who, medicine was used.
Closely linked to that, I think designers should be encouraged to enable Zero Values storage when designing forms as this will help differentiate true zero (0 )from missing (NA) values especially now that routine data is increasingly being used to answer research/scientific questions.
