MEASURE Evaluation has published comprehensive guidance for developing an electronic solution using DHIS 2 to track patients across the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV continuum of care. Our goal is to increase retention of mothers and their infants through the pregnancy and breastfeeding periods, and to improve linkages and referrals across services. This guidance is customized to address the complexities related to the PMTCT continuum of care, but the approaches for planning, designing, and configuring a patient tracker in DHIS 2 apply to any health program. The guidance includes the following:
- Instructions for conducting an initial assessment of the environment
- Description of the decisions that must be made during the planning stage, such as defining the scope of the tracker; the data elements to be collected; and the overall data collection, entry, and management processes
- Overview of the DHIS 2 Tracker program and the implications for developing a patient tracker
- Detailed recommendations for configuring the PMTCT tracker in DHIS 2: defining services and potential outcomes, enabling different facilities to schedule visits or mark them as completed, setting up notifications, configuring reports and creating PMTCT indicators from the data collected, and managing confidentiality and data security
MEASURE Evaluation is in the process of updating this Guidance, and a new version should be released in the next couple of months.