Primary Healthcare - Monitoring & Evaluation Assistants (PHC-MEAs)

Under Chief Minister’s Heath Reform Roadmap, Monitoring and Evaluation Assistants (MEAs) have been hired for independent monitoring of Primary and Secondary health care facilities for improvement of service delivery. The data is collected as per SOPs via android based tablets and uploaded on an online dashboard operated by Punjab Information and Technology Board (PITB). For cross verification of MEAs data, Provincial MEA coordinators have been hired. Information on key indicators is presented to Chief Minister in a bi-monthly Health Sector Stock-take. The same data is also shared twice a month by the roadmap team in the form of data-packs with all the districts including problem areas and required actions

Monitoring of RHCs and BHUs through Primary Health Care MEAs

A team of 177 PHC MEAs has been established. Initially 172 were hired in November 2014 but later on 5 additional MEAs were hired in October 2016.  The primary goal for this team is to collect reliable data through visits to all healthcare facilities of the province that includes 2400+ BHUs and 300+ RHCs, on the status of health facilities, staff presence, medicines availability, equipment functionality, deliveries, OPD visits and allied parameters. On Chief Minister’s instructions data collection on patient-specific indicators was started including Customer Experience Surveys and Patient Exit Interviews.  Randomization of MEA schedules has been introduced to increase the unpredictability of facility visits by PHC MEAs. In this regime PITB shares randomly generated lists of health facilities to be visited by PHC MEAs, directly to MEAs’ tablets.