Reference Number
ARO-21/08/19
Job Purpose
The Health Services Unit (HSU) of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust in Nairobi is starting a multi-year study to evaluate a broad strategy to improve the provision of neonatal care in Kenya’s county hospitals. The project will study a multi-component intervention that links regular performance monitoring and evaluation with efforts to improve the leadership, management and supervision skills of senior medical and nursing staff. As part of this work the research team helps support the Clinical Information Network that is a partnership with multiple Kenyan county hospitals. In each of these hospitals there is a uniform strategy of capturing high quality routine data on all Newborn Unit (NBU) admissions. These data are used to provide hospitals with regular reports on the NBU’s mortality and morbidity and on their performance in adhering to standard neonatal care guidelines as part of monitoring and improving the quality of NBU care provided. When pooled these data from multiple NBU become an important resource for understanding the outcomes of NBU care at larger scale than has previously been possible.
Key Responsibility
The Clinical Information Network for Newborns (CIN-N) is now seeking a new team member with epidemiological / statistical skills. The assistant research officer will work as part of a team under the direction of Study PI and the Senior Data Manager / Analyst for the CIN as part of the statistics and data management team but with special responsibilities for neonatal data. The person will:
- Help manage the CIN-N data collection process, ensure the high quality of data, continue to improve the data systems and ensure these are adequately documented and ensure the production of timely hospital feedback reports and aggregate hospital reports for sharing with hospitals and other national stakeholders.
- Help update / adapt the CIN-N data collection system so that it meets the needs of new projects
- Work closely with CIN team members and assume some supervisory responsibility for ensuring hospital clerks are effectively managed. This work may include travel to county hospital sites and training / supervision of data clerks.
- Liaise with senior CIN team members, county hospitals’ hospital management teams, paediatricians, senior nurses and HRIOs to ensure the smooth running of the CIN-N
- Ensure the production of reports using CIN-N data for Principal Investigators and for project funders as required
- Help present the data emerging from the CIN-N at internal meetings and in hospitals
This position will be linked to two major new projects over the next 3 to 4 years that are focused on improving hospital level care for sick newborns. The planned work is also being conducted in partnership with the Kenya Paediatric Association, the Kenya Paediatric Research Consortium, and the Ministry of Health as well as multiple county hospitals.
As part of a wider contribution to the KWTRP research programme in Nairobi the post-holder may partake in or help conduct internal epidemiological methodological workshops and shared learning sessions and will be expected to contribute to and help organise internal seminars and journal clubs and provide peer review of emerging proposals within KWTRP together with other senior scientists
Qualifications
Essential Qualifications
- BSc in a Healthcare Subject, Epidemiology or Medical/Bio Statistics
- An excellent academic track record as evidenced by grades for undergraduate training
- One year experience of the conduct of prior relevant research that has involved health data collection, analysis and report writing
Preferable
- Good understanding of the Kenyan public health and hospital system and some understanding of DHIS2 and the Kenyan Health Information System
- Practical experience in data management, data visualization, and basic methods of data analysis
- Understanding of the procedures used for ensuring high quality data collection and management
- Basic skills in use of the statistical programme ‘R’ or similar programmes such as STATA
- Basic familiarity in using REDCap or of similar data capture tools/software
- Clear interest in health services research
- Prior work on team based projects and demonstrable organizational skills
- Excellent interpersonal, written and presentation communication skills
- Ability to work relatively independently to achieve agreed objectives
- Focus on timely delivery of objectives
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