Data Informed Platform for Health: An innovative approach to evaluate maternal & newborn health. Evidence from Ethiopia and North East Nigeria

Introduction: Most maternal and newborn deaths are preventable with simple, lost-cost interventions. As innovations to reduce this burden are scaled up, new approaches are needed to evaluate survival impact. We propose a novel approach, the Data Informed Platform for Health (DIPH), to estimate the impact of maternal and newborn health innovations implemented at scale.

The DIPH will collect and coordinate data from public and private health sectors on inputs and processes that influence maternal and newborn health. The dual aims are (1) to promote the use of data for local health decision-making, and (2) to generate programme implementation strength scores for use in the estimation of survival impact.

Methods: Feasibility studies in Ethiopia and Nigeria include observational visits to district and regional health teams and to health facilities, and quality assessment of record-keeping mechanisms. These will lead to a formative phase, followed by pilot testing in 2-3 districts in each country. Full implementation in Ethiopia and two states of North-East Nigeria is anticipated to follow.

Results: Early results suggest that local government representatives are keen to have the DIPH embedded in their health systems; and that the key elements to support the Platform are present in health information systems of the public and NGO sector. Further results will be presented, along with a theoretical framework .

Conclusions: This approach has potential to measure key indicators of the scale-up of MNH innovations and to estimate impact on newborn survival.