Laboratory capacity expansion: lessons from establishing molecular testing in regional referral laboratories in Ethiopia.

Respiratory viruses contribute to high morbidity and mortality in Africa. In 2020, the Ohio State University's Global One Health Initiative, in collaboration with the Ethiopian Public Health Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, took action to strengthen Ethiopia's existing respiratory virus surveillance system through decentralization of laboratory testing and scale-up of national and regional capacity for detecting respiratory viruses. In August 2022, four regional laboratories were established, thereby raising the number of reference laboratories conducting respiratory virus surveillance to five. This article highlights lessons learned during implementation and outlines processes undertaken for laboratory scale-up and decentralization.

Implementation Status of Health Management Information System in Hospitals of South West Shoa Zone, Oromia, Central Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: Health Management Information Systems (HMIS) is an information system for health management and planning at district, regional, and national levels. Problems of data collection and processing, poor information use, lack of identifying information required at specific levels, and inadequacy of resources are hindering the implementation of the program. OBJECTIVE: To assess the implementation status of Health Management Information System (HMIS) in hospitals of South West Shoa Zone, Oromia, Central Ethiopia. METHODS: The assessment was conducted in South West Shoa Zone hospitals using a cross-sectional study design. Using three dimensions, namely, availability of resources, compliance to guideline, and utilization of information were studied. All hospitals in the zone were included and 210 health workers were included in the study. Quantitative data were entered into Epi-data and analyzed using SPSS.v.23. Descriptive summery was done using the proportion and frequencies and qualitative results were analyzed thematically. The study was conducted from February 20, 2020, to March 20, 2020. RESULTS: All hospitals have at least one computer specifically assigned for HMIS, while none of the hospitals have an allocated budget for HMIS. Regarding service training, 82% of the respondents had received HMIS training. The overall Implementation status of HMIS was 58%, which showed as a judgment parameter of "poor" implementation. Particularly, availability (58%) and compliance (55%) dimensions are categorized as "poor" implementation, whereas the information utilization dimension is categorized as a judgment parameter of "fair" implementation. CONCLUSION: The overall implementation status of HMIS in the study area was poorly implemented according to the preset criteria with stakeholders. Therefore, allocation of budget specifically for HMIS, strengthening capacity building activities such as training and supportive supervision with written feedbacks are recommended for effective implementation of the Health Management Information System.