In several countries, end-users that use DHIS2 for routine data entry through several digital forms have expressed difficulties with keeping track of all the forms that they should enter, how to find them, and remembering the different deadlines. Currently, routine reporting forms are found by the users through a three-step selection process in one interface:
- Select “organizational unit”, that is, the health facility you are reporting on behalf of.
- Select “Data set”, which refers to a form for a certain health program. This could be the reporting form for HIV/AIDs cases, Tuberculosis treatments, Malaria-cases, etc.
- The period that you want to report for. For example, August or September.
You can test the current process here.
Figure 1 - Current screen to find and select data entry forms
According to the end-users, this approach is not optimal in several ways:
- It is hard to get an overview of the relevant forms to submit.
- There is no immediate feedback of which forms that have been completed for the current period, and which that is still pending.
- The design does not correspond to the way the health-workers think of reporting in “the real world” and abstracts away the perception of working with actual forms.
Based on this, the Ministry of Health wants an app that provides a better overview of the forms that are relevant to each health facility. It should display lists of pending and completed reports, allow the users to click any of them to display/edit them (by redirecting the user to the existing data entry app in DHIS2), display deadlines, and only present the forms that are relevant to the current health-worker signed into the system. For instance, if the user only reports for Malaria-cases, the system should only display forms relevant to this.
The health-workers will either have access to a smartphone or a desktop computer. The phones and computers are connected to a 3G or 4G with good network coverage, but connectivity can be slow and unstable throughout the day.