The PhD defence and trial lecture will be fully digital and streamed directly using Zoom. The host of the session will moderate the technicalities while the chair of the defence will moderate the disputation.
Ex auditorio questions: the chair of the defence will invite the audience to ask ex auditorio questions either written or oral. This can be requested by clicking 'Participants -> Raise hand'.
Trial lecture
Title: "Barriers to use of information for action at the district and provincial level"
Main research findings
This thesis explores challenges associated with implementing standard health indicators in hierarchical organizations, and which approaches can be employed to mitigate these challenges. Hierarchical organizations are entrenched in fragmented healthcare systems, coupled with fragmented information systems, and multiple stakeholders and partners with conflicting views and perspectives; common scenarios in low and middle-income countries. Empirical data came from three sites, Cameroon, Ghana, and South Africa. Mixed methods were used to collect data.
The findings showed that although implementing standard health indicators is one of the strategies to harmonize information systems, the process is embedded in several challenges, which hinder the generation and eventually the use of data to support decision-making, particularly among staff at the peripheral level in hierarchical and centralized organizations.
In addition to developing a new analytical framework to understanding challenges associated with implementing standard health indicators in hierarchical organizations, the thesis contributed to IS training literature by demonstrating how to build local capacity on health information systems.
Adjudication committee:
- Professor Thiagarajan Sundararaman, Peoples Health Movement, India
- Associate Professor Nicolette Mostert, Nelson Mandela University, South Africa
- Post.Doc. Alexander Moltubakk Kempton, Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Supervisors
- Professor Jens Johan Kaasbøll, Department of Informatics, UiO
- Professor Eric Monteiro, Department of Computer Science, NTNU
Chair of defence
- Professor Ole Hanseth, Department of Informatics, UiO
Candidate contact information: LinkedIn or phone number: +47 94720435
Contact information to Department: Anniken R. Birkelund