Meeting with the Ministry of Health to strengthen surgical information systems in Zambia

​SURG-Africa Zambia works to include surgical indicators in the national data collection system. So far, we have been quite successful!

​In May 2018 the SURG-Africa team met with representatives and technical advisors at the Ministry of Health to discuss and explore mechanisms to collect core district hospital surgical data using the existing District Health Information System (DHIS2) software. Through the SURG-Africa situation analysis some of the ground work has already been done in terms of describing the multiple surgical data recording practices currently in use at district hospitals. Lessons learned from these practices will feed into the Surgical Information System (SIS) adaptation process in Zambia with a view to including a list of key surgical indicators to the system and assess how this information could fit with existing district hospitals Performance Assessment Tools. The workshop follows a previous event held in December 2017, during which a number of variables were identified for potential inclusion in the system (e.g. volume of surgical procedures, performing clinicians, data on referrals etc.). The list will be further refined in the coming months through a consultative process.