Monitoring and evaluation platform for HEARTS in the Americas: improving population-based hypertension control programs in primary health care

• Published in: Revista panamericana de salud pública Vol. 46; no. 161; pp. 1 - e161
• Main Authors: Prado, Patric, Gamarra, Angelo, Rodriguez, Libardo, Brettler, Jeffrey, Farrell, Margaret, Girola, Maria E., Malcolm, Taraleen, Martinez, Ramon, Molina, Virginia, Moran, Andrew E., Neupane, Dinesh, Rosende, Andres, González, Yamilé Valdés, Mukhtar, Qaiser, Ordunez, Pedro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Pan American Health Organization (Organizacion Panamericana de la Salud) 01.01.2022; Organización Panamericana de la Salud; Pan American Health Organization
• Subjects: Aggregate data; americas; Brief Communication; Cardiovascular diseases; Clinical decision making; ehealth strategies; Health facilities; Health information; Health Policy & Services; Health services; health surveillance system; Hypertension; Implementation; Internet; Policy making; Preventive medicine; Primary care; Quality of care; Secondary prevention; Software; Visualization; Hypertension; health surveillance system; Americas; sistema de vigilancia sanitaria; Américas; estrategias de esalud; Hipertensión; Hipertensão; cardiovascular diseases; América; estratégias de esaúde; sistema de vigilância sanitária; ehealth strategies; doenças cardiovasculares; enfermedades cardiovasculares
• ISSN: 1020-4989; 1680-5348; 1680-5348
• DOI: 10.26633/RPSP.2022.161

HEARTS in the Americas is the Pan American Health Organization flagship program to accelerate the reduction of the cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden by improving hypertension control and CVD secondary prevention in primary health care. A monitoring and evaluation (M&E) platform is needed for program implementation, benchmarking, and informing policy-makers. This paper describes the conceptual bases of the HEARTS M&E platform including software design principles, contextualization of data collection modules, data structure, reporting, and visualization. The District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2) web-based platform was chosen to implement aggregate data entry of CVD outcome, process, and structural risk factor indicators. In addition, PowerBI was chosen for data visualization and dashboarding for the analysis of performance and trends above the health care facility level. The development of this new information platform was focused on primary health care facility data entry, timely data reporting, visualizations, and ultimately active use of data to drive decision-making for equitable program implementation and improved quality of care. Additionally, lessons learnt and programmatic considerations were assessed through the experience of the M&E software development. Building political will and support is essential to developing and deploying a flexible platform in multiple countries which is contextually specific to the needs of various stakeholders and levels of the health care system. The HEARTS M&E platform supports program implementation and reveals structural and managerial limitations and care gaps. The HEARTS M&E platform will be central to monitoring and driving further population-level improvements in CVD and other noncommunicable disease-related health.