The Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Support (METS) Program is a 5-year CDC-supported collaboration of Makerere University School of Public Health (MakSPH), the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) and Health Information Systems Program (HISP Uganda).

Highlights of the METS February 2023 Newsletter

• Roll-out of ‘UgandaEMR Mobile’ Application to TASO-Supported Facilities
  • UgandaEMR is currently operational at over 1900 ART facilities countrywide and facilitates HIV /AIDS data capture at various service delivery points at the health facility either in real-time or retrospectively.
  • Between 16^th and 20^th January 2023, METS embarked on supporting the rollout of the UgandaEMR Mobile App to several TASO-supported health facilities in the districts of Gulu, Mbarara, and Masaka.
• Supporting Electronic Medical Records (EMR) Functionality at Regional Referral Hospitals (RRHs)
  • In January 2023, two Regional Referral Hospitals – Mubende and Soroti experienced challenges in management of their electronic data. As a result, the hospitals were unable to prepare routine program reports. The Ministry of Health established that the problem was due to non-functional servers and requested METS to intervene.
  • With funding from PEPFAR, METS was able to procure new servers to support the functionality of UgandaEMR in the ART clinics at the two hospitals. The METS support team spent three days providing technical assistance in installing Operations Systems (Windows Server OS), UgandaEMR System, and migrating data from the old servers.
• Improving Services to Orphans and other Vulnerable Children
  • In November 2022, the METS team working together with Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development, USAID’s Strategic Information Technical Support (SITES) and other stakeholders conducted a follow-on Orphans and other Vulnerable Children (OVC) program service quality assessment to assess satisfaction among the beneficiaries of the program services provided between October 2021 and March 2022.
  • Overall, the assessment revealed that the quality of OVC service offered in the Rwenzori region was adequate and met expectations at 86% on average under the sections of Economic Strengthening & Stability, Education & Development, Care & Protection and Survival and Health.
• Site-readiness Assessment for Safe Male Circumcision (SMC)
  • METS in collaboration with the three new Implementing Partners (Uganda Catholic Medical Bureau, Uganda Protestant Medical Bureau and Kampala Capital City Authority) conducted an inter-agency service quality assessment for SMC site readiness at 13 supported sites.
  • Four sites obtained low scores (below 60%) mainly due to suboptimal availability of key items for the SMC services indicating a low level of readiness. Four sites had a high score (at least 90%) indicating a high level of readiness. The remaining 5 sites had acceptable level of readiness (60-89%) for SMC service provision with minimal need for improvement. Only 46% of the sites had the required information, education and communication materials.
• Distribution of HIS Hardware equipment
  • Over the last 3 years PEPFAR, through the METS program, has procured computer and networking equipment for distribution to health facilities. This equipment is intended to support the Ministry of Health digitization project, improve electronic medical (EMR) coverage, and accelerate the implementation of Point of Care (PoC).
  • This has been a phased process that began in January 2022 with distribution to over 600 health facilities. The current distribution phase is data capture devices which include mini servers, desktops, laptops, tablets, and fingerprint scanners to 26 implementing partners across the country.

• Pictorial: PEPFAR Partners and Stakeholders Strategy Meeting
  • METS was part of a meeting held on 22-23 February 2023 at Mestil Hotel to review partners’ progress and discuss the strategy of 95% of all people living with HIV knowing their status, 95% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection receiving antiretroviral treatment, and 95% of all people receiving treatment having viral suppression by 2030.
• PEPFAR Science Summit
  • METS was part of the annual PEPFAR Science Summit, a U.S. Uganda Mission-led platform that brings together U.S. government researchers and scholars and partners (IPs) in Uganda to share new scientific research to inform the implementation of HIV and TB programs and related policies.
  • METS made two presentations on Measurement of Regional Referral Hospitals Health Systems Capacity: Application of Progression Model by Dr. Simon Muhumuza and Improving the Quality of Cervical Cancer Services in Uganda: Onsite Mentorship and Coaching Approach by Connie Ninisiima
• Regional Referral Hospital Performance Review Meetings
  • METS provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health (MoH) during a Joint Technical Supportive Supervision and Performance Review exercise for 9 Regional Referral Hospitals (RRH) across the country from February 20-24, 2023.
  • The exercise was an opportunity to assess how far along the facilities were implementing their work plans, review their performance targets as well as identifying implementation challenges of the RRH mechanism that was introduced by MoH.
• Key Population and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (KP/PrEP) Tracker training
  • The Peace Corps requested METS to support its partners to conduct KP tracker training and an orientation on data collecting tools for community outreaches. Key populations are defined groups who, due to specific higher-risk behaviors, are at increased risk of HIV.