When you mention innovation, most people immediately think of the latest app that tracks daily life with pinpoint precision, or costly new technologies like Google Glass that just a decade ago would have been considered impossible.
But in health clinics across Africa, it's a new kind of low-tech innovation that is promising to help health workers, stretch donor dollars and save lives. The Better Immunization Data (BID) Initiative, a partnership led by Seattle-based organization PATH, is revolutionizing the way vaccine data is tracked from the lab to the last mile.
Despite recent progress preventing millions of child deaths worldwide through immunization, getting vaccines to children in the hardest-to-reach communities still presents numerous challenges. One in five children still lacks access to basic vaccines, and across Africa, the average immunization rate stubbornly hovers around 77 percent. To close the gap, we first need to understand why progress has stalled. Better data collection can unlock those answers, and help us find new ways to maximize donor investments in vaccines.
Tracking data more effectively will help us find children who have not been vaccinated, reach those who "dropped out" between doses, and get the right number of vaccines to the right place at the right time. This is the foundation of the BID Initiative.
Too often, the story of vaccine supplies and patient visits is hidden in dusty registers, the result of notes scribbled in pencil (often in triplicate) by an overburdened health worker. This is an inefficient way of doing business and takes valuable time away from patient care. It also renders meaningful data analysis next to impossible. Without reliable, easily accessible and actionable information on the barriers to immunization, decision makers don't have the full picture. Better data is required to understand which problems matter most, and where.
The BID Initiative could change everything. With pilot programs now underway in Tanzania and Zambia, BID is empowering health workers and country decision makers by pinpointing inefficiencies and identifying the best ways to solve them.
I recently visited the Arusha region of Tanzania to see the BID pilot in action. Tanzania's health system has improved steadily under the leadership of Dr. Dafrossa, manager of the expanded program on immunization. "Coverage has increased to over 90 percent," she explained. "We have introduced many new vaccines, and now with the BID Initiative, we want to increase our efficiency."
Here are some of the low-tech innovations I observed making a big difference:
- Country-owned, country-led solutions will lead to long-term improvements. There's no question that better data collection leads to better analysis, smarter funding and healthier communities. Health workers on the front lines in African clinics know best where the shortfalls are, which is why the BID Initiative established User Advisory Groups of members from all levels of Tanzania's health system to inform how BID solutions should be implemented at the local level.
Another example is the launch of Tanzania's national electronic immunization registry to register every child from birth. Depending on each facility's infrastructure, health workers can register children's vaccinations online or use paper forms with barcodes compatible with the electronic system. Now, instead of spending hours searching through a dense register, health workers can quickly determine who didn't show up for their vaccinations, where they live and how to reach their parent or guardian.
Unprecedented commitments from donors, developing countries and partners have helped immunize nearly half a billion children. Now is the time to make sure the infrastructure and processes are in place to maximize these commitments—and through BID, it is process-level interventions like these that promise to have big impact.