Monitoring is very important in Primary Health Care service planning and implementation.

Box 5.1 sets out some of the ways that monitoring information can be used by you and your team of village level health workers such as model families and other volunteers. Getting information in this way will also be useful for your supervisor and other managers in the health services.

Box 5.1 The uses of monitoring information

Understanding the health situation in your community and how the health services are performing.
Determining whether the resources in the health services are being well used.
Ensuring that all activities are carried out properly by the right people and at the right time.
Ensuring that activities and tasks are performed in accordance with set standards.
Identifying health problems facing the community and starting to find solutions.
Ensuring community groups and local individuals participate appropriately in health activities.

Look closely at the uses of monitoring information that are set out in Box 5.1. Which of these uses will be helpful to you as a Health Extension Practitioner, and which will be of use to your supervisor and managers in the health service?

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In fact all these items will be of use to you when you are trying to record and report back on the work that you do. Information on all these activities will also be useful for your supervisor and other managers in the health service.

Here are some basic points for successful monitoring:

Build simple information collection methods.
Understand why you collect all those pieces of information.
Make sure that all your monitoring records are completed fully and accurately.
Give people who are providing you with information feedback on the monitoring results and explain to them how monitoring is being used to make the service more effective.
Check that the service is not collecting the same piece of information more than once.

Why do you think it is important to be accurate in your collection of information about the services that you are providing?

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Inaccurate information may lead to the wrong action being taken in the future. If the correct data is not collected then it becomes impossible to plan proper healthcare for the people in your community.