Indicating what exactly?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about data. We spend so much time, not to mention tax payer dollars, traveling to the field and collecting a heck of a lot of information about health. DHS anyone? Recently it has really hit me how important it is to not only collect the data but to collect the right data and ask the smart questions so we can properly monitor progress. One of the best quotes I recently heard was, “You don’t improve what you don’t measure.” Suddenly, indicators have become quite attractive but they are only useful if they measure the right variable or outcome and people use them. Of the gazillion guidebooks and handbooks for M&E, I wonder how often those (hopefully) well thought out indicators are actually used. And if we are all using different measurement tools, are we really measuring the same things?

I work in a world of human resources for health and health systems strengthening. Metrics for progress in these areas is difficult. Our work and innovative interventions are not as cut and dry as a lot of service delivery projects i.e. providing vaccines or ARVs. The past few weeks I’ve felt like a student again as I’ve participated in a multitude of webinars and conference calls related to various HRH topics. A recurrent theme: measuring our work and linking health successes to our health system and HRH interventions. HSS and HRH are no longer new – we’ve been doing this for quite some time and it’s time to show the world that what we are doing indeed is improving health outcomes for populations in developing countries.

What does an indicator really look like for measuring health workforce development? My project recently released a compendium of HRH indicators (http://www.capacityplus.org/hrhic/content/introduction), which proves to be a useful guide. I recently suggested to my team that before finalizing a simple progress report template for a health training program in Uganda, I wanted to consult this compendium to make sure we were capturing any data satisfying HRH indicators. In my own little way, I’m committing to using the right indicators so that any data I can collect can be properly measured and evaluated in the HRH world!