Capacity and practical skill of health statistical staff and training needs

The results indicated that human resource for the health management information system was at low qualification. Only 29% of statistical staffs had graduation or post – graduate education, especially, the rate of personnel trained in statistic was very low (2.9%). The majority of staffs did the statistical activities as part-time job and the average number of years working in statistical field was 6.
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Capacity and practical skill of health statistical staff and training needsJOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCHCAPACITY AND PRACTICAL SKILL OF HEALTHSTATISTICAL STAFF AND TRAINING NEEDSNguyen Phuong Hoa¹, Pham Ngan Giang¹,Thanh Ngoc Tien¹, Hoang Thanh Huong²¹Department of Family Medicine, Hanoi Medical University; ² Ministry of HealthObjectives of the study were to assess the capacity and practical skills of the health statistical staff alongwith their training needs. A cross-sectional study was conducted in health facilities of 3 provinces HaNam, Bac Giang, Bac Ninh divided into three levels: province, district and commune. 104 health statisticalstaffs completed questionnaires. The results indicated that human resource for the health managementinformation system was at low qualification. Only 29% of statistical staffs had graduation or post – graduate education, especially, the rate of personnel trained in statistic was very low (2.9%). The majority ofstaffs did the statistical activities as part-time job and the average number of years working in statisticalfield was 6. The capacity to use ICT for reporting and storing data was quite low at 12.4% and 7.9%respectively. The capacity to analyze and use statistical data was poor, only less than 20% of total considered themselves “good” at data accuracy checking and interpreting the result. Only 35.6 % of healthstaffs were able to interpret charts and a negligible amount of people could infer the reason of thosefindings. In conclusion, it is important to provide new and qualified human resources and there is a largeneed for training the existing staff in order to improve the performance of the health statistical information.Keywords: health information, health statistical staff, training needsI. INTRODUCTIONAccording to the UN Agencies framework [1], adopted by the Vietnam Ministry ofHealth (MOH) [2], information is one important component of the health system andplays a vital role in the development process of the health system. Complete, timely,accurate and well-analyzed information notonly meets the needs of management andCorresponding author: Nguyen Phuong Hoa, Department of Family Medicine, Hanoi Medical UniversityEmail: nguyenphuonghoa@hmu.edu.vnReceived: 05 June 2017Accepted: 16 November 2017JMR 111 E2 (2) - 2018administration of the health sector, but alsothose of scientific research activities, policyformulation and communication on healthcare for the population. The health information system consists of six components:resources, indicators, data sources; management data; information product, dissemination, and use of information [3]. Amongthose components, human resource development is the utmost importance [4 - 6].Until 2012, in Vietnam, although therewere a number of policies from the government related to health statistics and infor95JOURNAL OF MEDICAL RESEARCHmational activities, but so far there was noofficial document, that defines the healthstatistics professional career, including thetraining requirements for statistics staff.Therefore, competency levels of health statistical personnel were also not assessed.This was compounded by there not yethaving a plan for human resources development in the health sector in Vietnam. Inorder to improve better capacity, it is essential to develop a detailed training program.Hence, to build capacity for health statisticalstaff, there should be specific assessmentsof their practical skills, qualification, andtraining needs [7; 8].Based on the above reasons, this studywas conducted with the aim to assess thecapacity and practical skills of health statistical staff, and their training needs at provincial, district and commune levelsII. SUBJECTS AND METHODS1. SubjectsHealth statistical staffs who worked inprovincial, district and commune levelswere selected.2. MethodsLocationsThis study took place in 2012 at healthfacilities of three provinces Ha Nam, BacGiang and Bac Ninh. Each province was divided into three levels:- At Provincial level: staffs from the Department of Health, Provincial GeneralHospital, Specialized hospitals, ProvincialPreventive Medicine Centers, ReproductiveHealth Centre, and the HIV/AIDS Centre ofthese provinces.96- At District level: staff from the DistrictPreventive Medicine Centres and DistrictHospitals out of 5 districts per each province. 5 districts were selected by the simplerandom method.- At Commune level: staff from random5 CHCs out of each district selected. Therefore, the total number of CHCs selected ineach province was: 5CHCs x 5 districts =25 CHCs.Size of the sampleThere were a total of 104 respondents- At Provincial level:+ In each Department of Health (DOH) 3officers were selected: 2 statistical officersand 1 planning officer.+ In the Provincial General Hospital, orspecialized hospitals and other health centres at provincial level, 2 officers were selec ...