Appendix 2: Case Study - MSF Dashboard in Sierra Leone

Goal: To create a dashboard tool to support real time analysis of integrated disease surveillance and response data in Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone.

Method: Integrate geo-spatial data of health catchment areas (polygons) into Tonkolili district. These health catchment areas had to be created since this data was not available.

Data composition: List of health facilities and list of villages. Polygons representing health catchment areas created through OSM community.

Data sources: Field workers, remote community mappers, satellite imagery

Data validation: Community health workers, field, and remote community mappers.

Data sharing: Shared with OSM platform as part of common open data policy.

Partnerships: Ministry of Health

Design tools/Technology: Mobile phone applications (ODK and Kobo) used to collect data in the field.

Steps:

• Collect GPS coordinates of villages and health facilities.

• Create list of health catchment areas (villages per health facility)

• Delimitate the polygons of health catchment areas using satellite imagery.

• Validation of data using health workers, field, and remote community mappers.

Benefits:

• Dashboard still used to monitor health surveillance in Tonkolili.

• Only such dashboard at the time. Used by MoH and other agencies working in the area.

• Part of derived data (health facility GPS coordinates, populated places GPS coordinates) are used by other stakeholders via the OSM platform.

• Similar dashboards have been developed in several provinces in DRC, Chad and Nigeria and are used for Emergency Response Units (ERUs)

• Feedback from the field is globally positive.

Challenges:

• Getting geo-spatial data for visualization

• Getting epidemiological data in a timely manner to feed the dashboard accurately.