Data Flow – Architecture I. A functional planning and operational framework needs a dataflow system and management information. Without these, it is as dysfunctional as a human being without a nervous system.

The complex institution framework for malaria control is operating with very limited performance metrics. There are pieces, but not a complete framework. Most of the analysis data are derived from very small surveys and statistical manipulation, with very little of cost accounting, and even less of cost effectiveness analysis.

The following describes in simple terms how TVM data about community is collected and used. Data are most cost effective when one set of data are capable of being used in many different ways ... in this case at both the local level and the academic or scientific level.

IMAGE

The key goal of data collection is to have data that are useful and help improve performance.

Local data collection ... local analysis ... local action is the cycle that improves performance most directly and most quickly.

Having the data also used at a “higher” level facilitates oversight and the sort of monitoring that can be used to identify the need for corrective action by the analysis of much larger sets of data. At a higher level there can be analysis that identifies “best practice” and issues that are impossible to identify with local analysis alone.

Data Flow – Architecture II. The data flow has the following structure:

• Event -->
• Observer -->
• Cell Phone/Mobile Device -->
• SMS message -->
• Local computer/database/receiver -->
• Periodic upload to a national datacenter and
• Periodic upload to a global datacenter