Presented at an APHA session by Michelle Li.

1. Applying a User-Centered A
Design Approach to Improve
Data Use in Decision Making
Michelle Li
MEASURE Evaluation
Palladium
APHA
November 7, 2017

2. Presenter Disclosures
The following personal financial relationships
with commercial interests relevant to this
presentation existed during the past 12 months:
No relationships to disclose
Michelle Li

3. Functions and Goals of a Health System
(2000)
FUNCTIONS (6 Building Blocks) GOALS/OUTCOMES OF
THE SYSTEM
Stewardship
Commodities
Infrastructure
Service delivery
Financing
I
N
P
U
T
S
Health
Responsiveness
(the way people are
treated and the
environment)
Fairness in
financial
contribution
Quality
Coverage
Efficiency
Source: WHO, 2000.
3
Human resources
Information
Safety

4. Improving Information Systems
• Global
commitment to
accountability
• New data
resources
• Result is more
and better data

5. More Data = Better Decisions?

6. Problem Statement
How can we develop interventions that
address individual needs and barriers
to data use?

7. Methods
• Location: Two districts in
South Africa and
Tanzania
• Participants: data users
and data producers
• Immersion interviews
• Design workshops:
• Understand barriers
• Ideate and prototype

8. Design Framework
Adapted from Standord d.school

9. Empathy
• How can we put
ourselves into the
shoes of the data user?
• What are our data
user’s wants, needs
and interests?
• What are our data
user’s challenges and
pain points?

10. Empathy – Immersion interviews
• Observe and speak to people at their place of
work to understand beliefs, attitudes, and
behaviors around data use
• What do you love most about your job?
• Who is the best data user you know? Why are
they good at their job?
• What is the most important aspect of your
work? What role does data play in this?

11. Design Framework

12. Define – Workshop I Activities

13. Insights on Data Use Barriers
• Technical
• Adequate and timely provision of resources
• Low confidence in quality of data collected
• Lack of clarity on how data is used
• HIS systems are adequate, but not used to full potential.
There is no involvement of end users in the design of HIS
systems and tools.
• Tension between service provision and data tasks, especially at
lower levels
• Data collection tools are overly complicated and there is a lack
of prioritization of data needs

14. Insights on Data Use Barriers
• Behavioural
• Little top-down positive feedback on data
• Primary data collectors display lack of commitment and negative
attitudes toward data use
• Organizational
• Value of data for decision making is not well understood – more
emphasis on collection
• Desire exists for a culture of data use
• Lack of clarity, poor communication, and complex SOPs hinder data
sharing and use

15. Define: Creating Personas

16. Go
Getters
• LOVE data
• Hard workers and proactive in work
• Frustrated by environments that accept
lower performers
• Desire for perfection can push them to work long
hours and burn out
Hyper-
actives
• Full of energy
• Seek attention constantly
• Require very hands-on supervision
• Can be creative problem solvers, but requires focused
workplan to stay on task
Lazy
Dodgers
• Always “busy” but do not produce quality outputs
• Always miss deadlines and targets
• Flourish in an environment with no consequences
• Full of excuses and avoid responsibilities
Personas

17. Design Framework

18. Ideate – How might we?

19. Design Framework

20. Prototype

21.  UGUdoc.com: A digital portal
connecting health workers with
current and archived data, policy
docs, SOPs, and an AskMe bulletin
board to receive feedback on
specific facility and system
challenges
 What’s Up Health/Social Media: A
communication solution to
consolidate district/provincial data-
related communication
in one place to accelerate
messaging, and information
Prototypes – Improving Communication

22. Prototypes – Improving data use
at lower levels
 Data Use Score Cards: Rapid data
use assessment score cards targeted
to health facilities, to provide
feedback and encourage
competition for best performer
facilities
 Clinicians on Board: A clinician data
sensitization program focused on
including data management in
clinician KPAs and training for “using
data to manage”

23.  Champion Cascade: Rapidly
create a culture of data use by
appointing champions across
levels; develop a toolkit to
develop presentation,
facilitation, and supervision
styles and share good practice
tools through a What’s Up
Health communications system.
Champions are awarded based
on overall HIS performance of
their facilities.
Prototypes – Promoting Data Use
Champions

24. Strengths of the UCD Process
• Development of context specific solutions
• Build ownership with users
• Facilitates empathy between data users and data
producers
• Engaging and fun!

25. Lessons Learned
• Design workshops are an innovative facilitation tool
to engage people to discuss and brainstorm
solutions to data use challenges
• Agree on an action plan (with resources, timelines,
and responsibilities)for prototype testing
• Identify highly motivated people (i.e., data use
champions) to move prototypes forward
• Support participants who want to take up
facilitation techniques and activities in their own
work

26. Acknowledgements
• Tara Nutley (MEASURE Evaluation, Palladium)
• Amanda Makulec (MEASURE Evaluation, JSI)
• Cal Bruns and Jason Coetzee (Matchboxology)
• Roselyn Kareithi (MEASURE Evaluation – Strategic
Information for South Africa [SIFSA])
• Sono Kusekwa and Jackie Patrick (MEASURE
Evaluation – Tanzania)

27. This presentation was produced with the support of the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the
terms of MEASURE Evaluation cooperative agreement AID-OAA-L-
14-00004. MEASURE Evaluation is implemented by the Carolina
Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in
partnership with ICF International; John Snow, Inc.; Management
Sciences for Health; Palladium; and Tulane University. Views
expressed are not necessarily those of USAID or the United States
government.
www.measureevaluation.org