Improved Data Accuracy Assessment Tool for Information Management Systems

Developing countries are increasingly taking advantage of the rapid advancement in ICT to replace paper-based operations with Information Management Systems (IMS) such as District Health Information Software (DHIS). While the adoption of IMS presents significant benefits, challenges exist in the quality of IMS data. Inaccurate, incomplete or redundant data in IMS has misled organisations into making incorrect decisions leading to customer dissatisfaction and high cost implications. There is an urgent need for IMS stakeholders to have mechanisms of assessing the quality of data prior to data analysis, data sharing or decision making. Data Accuracy Assessment Tool (DAAT) assesses and identifies errors in a pair of context related datasets. DAAT provides ability for Data Managers to easily compare datasets by choosing attributes of their interest from a pool of diverse attributes that define the data. Through reports and visualization, the tool reveals the accuracy of data in real time using metrics such as validity, completeness and duplication of data. DAAT is scalable since it can be integrated with any IMS such as DHIS. The tool has been tested using four years Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) program data from JHPIEGO's AIDSFree project in Tanzania.