The Impact of Performance-Based Financing Implementation on Healthcare Data Quality of Health Management Information System in Sierra Leone

Abstract

Data quality is an important aspect of data for effective healthcare planning and decision making. The Government of Sierra Leone launched the performance-based financing (PBF) scheme in June 2011, whereby target indicators included improving the quality of data for an informed decision making. We investigated the impact of PBF scheme on healthcare data quality using mixed-method sequential explanatory research design considering three data reporting periods: the pre PBF scheme in 2010, during PBF scheme in 2012, and the post PBF scheme in 2018. Results on timely reporting rate show an average percentage improvement in 2012 by 1.9% and 6.7% compared to 2010 and 2018, respectively. Results on complete reporting rate show an average percentage improvement in 2012 by 2.8% and 6.2% compared to 2010 and 2018, respectively. Results on accurate reporting rate show an average percentage decrease in 2012 by of 5.6% and 8.4% compared to 2010 and 2018, respectively. The results were validated and shown to be statistically significant, implying that the PBF scheme had positive impact on timely and complete data quality dimensions, but on the contrary, negative impact on the accuracy data quality dimension. Quantitative results strongly correlate to the mixed views on PBF obtained from qualitative results.