Health Facilities Performance Monitoring Team focused motivation interventions to improve the use of health information for better decision making: An implementation research study protocol

Background: In many resource-limited settings, including Ethiopia data use is a major challenge in the health sector. The transformation of health data use requires a concerted effort as it entails addressing barriers that are linked to technical, behavioral, and organizational factors. Although the importance of data-driven decisionmaking is recognized, there is paucity of evidence on how to effectively achieve this goal. This implementation research therefore aims at implementing interventions that can enhance the competence and motivation of the Performance Monitoring Team (PMT) in order to improve the culture of information use among health facilities in the Dire Dawa Administration and Harari regions. Methods: Between January 2021 and February 2022, a quasi-experimental study including a pre- and postassessment of data utilization was conducted at two hospitals and two health facilities in the Dire Dawa and Harari regions of Ethiopia. All PMT members at the health facilities were part of the study populations. The research was carried out in four phases, with the following approaches: (i) baseline situational analysis and prioritization of HIS issues; (ii) data collection and identification of implementation barriers and facilitators influenced by the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR); (iii) developing and implementing PMT-focused interventions; and (iv) monitoring and evaluating interventions using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation and Maintenance (RE-AIM) model. Focused capacity building, best-performer recognition, dataday celebration forums, and PMT motivating interventions were to be improved based on the formative evaluations and the formative assessments. These will be the implementation strategies. Descriptive and regression analyses, as well as thematic analysis was used for the quantitative and qualitative studies, respectively. Ethical clearance has been obtained from the Haramaya University College of Health and Medical Sciences, Institutional Health Research Ethics Review Committee (IHRERC). Expected Outcomes: This implementation research is expected to inform the barriers and facilitators of data use among health facilities and its implementation. The interventions proposed are expected to enhance the use of data for informed decision making. Furthermore, the feasibility, adoption, and maintenance of the intervention strategies are the alternate outcomes of this study.