Family planning decision making at a click of a button

Our team in Bungoma County supported two days of Family Planning Training, targeting the Ministry of Health officials of different cadres drawn from all the sub-counties.

A family planning (FP) dashboard is powerful tool for decision making. This vital government owned tool can inform planning, budgeting and eventually improve accountable family planning service delivery by:

  • Tracking reproductive health trainings undertaken by the service providers
  • Sharing FP reports in different forms
  • Monitoring FP commodities and stock status of a particular facility

Our team in Bungoma County supported two days of training, targeting the Ministry of Health officials of different cadres drawn from all the sub-counties. Testimonies provided by the participants are a clear indicator that the training on the tool was timely.

Hellen Koloni, the Sub-County health records officer-Webuye East, acknowledged that she was not privy to the tool until the training. After the training, she learnt that at a click of a button, she will be able to monitor the FP commodity stock of each facility and provide advice for redistribution so that services can continue as normal before each facility receives new stock. You can imagine this will reduce wastage and unnecessary expiration of commodities. Hellen says the tool will help minimize stock out at any given time. Hellen says, 

When you want to see how much the facility is having in terms of stock, at times they misappropriate in terms of mathematics, but this one at the click of a button, not necessarily going to the pivot table the way it has been, am able to look at a facility and share with them the trends. 

Haron Hamisi is the Reproductive Health Coordinator for Webuye east Sub County. He explains how excited he is to navigate through the dashboard. As he does this, he will be able to know the reporting rates of the facilities and to compare the performance of his sub county with the others.

According to Haron, the tool is an eye opener. He will be able to track the FP stock in terms of utilisation rate for different methods in each facility. He will also be able to do proper quantification and ordering and even update on each staff trained on each service provision. 

The dashboard will inform Harron’s decision making in terms of improving the skills of his staff. He says, "I have come to realise that Bungoma county and the sub-counties FP commodities like the injectable have higher rates of consumption, followed by implants. The vasectomy has come to be the last one (0.0%). so it has opened up for me to go and sensitise and also to lobby for more trainings from the county so that people can be trained on service provision of BTL, Vasectomy and other services as concerned with FP". 

Lorna is the Reproductive Health Coordinator for Kanduyi Sub County, commenting that the tool is a game changer. Lorna will be able to compare her FP commodity stocks with other sub counties and is willing to redistribute not only between facilities in her sub county but also to other sub counties, as well as know who to borrow from should need arise.

Lorna commits that she will now be able to hold her staff accountable for all the FP related trainings they had attended. She acknowledges the gap that exists in terms of skills of service providers at private health facilities and that as she will be able to track the trainings among the government facility staffs, the private health facilities will not be left out since their data is also used for decision making.

Lorna is no longer going to blindly order for commodities. She says, "If you are going to do orders for the FP commodities, you will be able to know which commodities are being used by most clients and which ones are not being used, and you are able to know how much to order and for how long".

With the momentum gained following the training on FP dashboards, and the enthusiasm noted, it’s high time we used the FP Dashboard to inform decision making in Bungoma County.

The service providers have committed to change the approach to FP service delivery in the County. I urge the implementing partners; particularly DSW and E4A-MamaYe to initiate the follow-up mechanisms to ensure the commitments are delivered.

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