CBC Health Services’ Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (PMEL) System on Pilot Phase
Some top Management team at the CBC Health Services’ Central Administration in an Inception Meeting on April 27, 2019, at the DHS-Hall Nkwen, Bamenda were presented a Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (PMEL) System. The system, when harmonized and adopted, would render data collection within the entire CBC Health Services easy and fluid.
Mr. Vincent Mujune, PMEL and Management Consultant from Uganda, explained that the PMEL Initiative is aimed at developing and piloting an integrated system for Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning for the CBC Health Services.
According to Mr. Mujune, the CBC Health Services provides variety of quality healthcare services to the community through hospitals and programs such as the Malaria Control, HIV Free, Non Communicable Diseases Prevention and Control, and the SEEPD among others.There is need to have a holistic system put in place to coordinate this great and extensive work.
“My role in this initiative is to support the CBC Health Services develop a PMEL System and help the team that I will be working with to start piloting the system in Mboppi Baptist Hospital and its two catchment health centers. In doing this, we hope that there will be more opportunities for all different units through which the CBC Health Services works collectively and have a system that can enable us to see the whole CBC and its performance as a whole and not just small units with their individual performances. Ultimately, we should see that all these efforts contribute to the overall mission of the CBC Health Services,” explained the consultant.
The PMEL is currently on the pilot phase at Mboppi Baptist Hospital Douala and her satellite health centers in Bonaberi and Kribi testing and assessing the program indicators. “What we are doing now with the team is to first set up the indicators that will be used to measure the performances for each of the departments within CBC Health Services. Indicators will be assigned to measure their performances and these will all be collectively gathered together within the organization so that there will be a single way we can look at the health and performance of this organization as a whole and not just one unit at a time,” elaborated Mr. Mujune.
Members of the PMEL team at the meeting took turns to do PowerPoint presentations on the stages that PMEL will go through to be validated, and the different performance domains that will be tested during the pilot phase. The team provided clarifications on the reactions and questions from those present at the meeting.
As moderator at the Inception Meeting, the CBC Health Services’ Chief of Administration and Finance (CAF), Mr. Warri Denis assured the PMEL team that the Administration is fully in support of the program and is looking forward to the success of this pilot phase and the eventual implementation of the PMEL for a resilient CBC Health Services.
Speaking to CBCHS Press at the close of the meeting, Mr. Munjune expressed his contentment with the CBC Health Services administration for opening up to change and for embracing this innovative idea. “I particularly want to thank the Director of Health Services and the Chief of Administration who are particularly supportive of this idea. We are optimistic that when this is done, it will not only make decision making easier within the CBC Health Services but it will also make us more efficient as an organization, responding quickly to problems that happen rather than when we are operating very much in a scattered way and this will make us stronger as an organsation is supposed to,” concluded Munjune.
The successful pilot of the PMEL system, will guarantee a more resilient CBC Health Services in terms of efficiency, and render a more reliable way of monitoring and evaluating the activities of staff, departments, facilities and programs of the entire system. The PMEL can usher in reliability in the manner which data is collected and analyzed and eventually, can win the CBC Health Services the status of an International Research Centre where reliable data can be collected to make informed decisions. The program will also guide the synergy of the other programs that have been in existence in the CBC Health Services.