In honor of Khulisa’s 30th birthday this month, we’re asking Khulisa’s earliest employees to look back on their decades of experience and provide #EvalTuesdayTips for other evaluators. Last week’s tip came from Khulisa founder Peter Capozza. Today’s tip is from Khulisa Managing Director Michael Ogawa.
Michael joined Khulisa in 1995 as the company’s third employee. He manages Khulisa’s business intelligence portfolio, which includes major projects in health, education, science, and technology. Michael’s tip is about why it‘s best to use a web-based information system with a centralized database for storing evaluation data.
“One of my first assignments when I started working for Khulisa was a Microsoft Access monitoring system for a local education NGO,” says Michael. “Separate databases were installed at individual sites and the data was manually merged on a regular basis. This was a cumbersome system prone to duplication errors and incomplete data.
“As Khulisa grew as a company, we focused more on hiring subject matter experts, and our experience and scope in developing monitoring and evaluation [M&E] systems blossomed. In the mid 2000’s, we shifted to open source, web-based systems and developed a data warehouse for PEPFAR South Africa. We took this expertise and developed a web-based M&E system for the Department of Science and Technology. We have now been involved in the development and roll-out of the Eswatini Client Management Information System (ECMIS) for four and a half years.”
Based on our three decades of developing and implementing information systems, here are some advantages to using a web-based system with a centralized database.
- Data Integrity: Data is stored in one location, which reduces the risk of data duplication, inconsistencies, and discrepancies. Data can be captured at the source.
- Data Management: Since there is only one database, maintenance (e.g. backups, security updates, and administration) is more efficient and cost-effective.
- Access: Users can access web-based systems via computers and mobile devices that have an internet data connection. The reach of the internet is expanding in emerging economies, increasing accessibility of web-based information systems to communities and government employees (in education, health, social development, and other outreach services).
- Security: Centralized databases allow organizations to implement different user authentication and authorization levels, so that only authorized individuals can access sensitive information, some users can only capture data, and others only have access to certain reports.
- Scalability: Centralized databases can be designed to allow scalability so that as the amount of data that is collected and stored increases, the database can grow without affecting the performance of the system.
- Reporting and Analysis: Reports and data dumps (for analysis) can be generated from the centralized system rather than having to customize local decentralized systems, which is time-consuming and can result in some sites not having up-to-date reports. This makes reports and data available to any user who has authorized access to the system.
- Data-driven Decision-making: Since all data is consolidated in a single database, managers and decision-makers have access to comprehensive information that can inform strategic decisions. In decentralized systems, data must be gathered from disparate systems, which is time-consuming and inefficient.
- Reduced Data Redundancy: Centralized databases reduce redundancy because data is stored in a single database.
- Auditing: Centralized databases can be designed to track access and changes to data for compliance and auditing purposes.
The initial design for the Eswatini CMIS used servers and local area networks in individual health facilities throughout Eswatini. Every month, staff members transferred data from each health facility using portable hard drives. The data was uploaded and merged into a single database in Mbabane, Eswatini’s capital city.
This process was time-consuming and could result in incomplete information if some facilities weren’t able to upload and merge their data. Reports and dashboards were installed individually at the facility level, so if there was a problem with a report, the team had to go to that facility to fix the issue.
When the CMIS version 2 was implemented, the system transformed to a web-based system with a centralized database. While internet connectivity could be a challenge, the team overcame that challenge by using a local cellular data network to connect the facilities to the centralized system. Reports and dashboards were later developed at the central level and accessible through the web-based system, allowing for central administration and modification of reports and dashboards.
Making this change to a web-based system with a centralized database at the Eswatini Ministry of Health has had a huge impact, making the system easier to use for Eswatini health workers and improving patients’ quality of care.
Tune in next week for another 30th-anniversary tip from one of our Khulisa directors.