Mr. Manish Kumar, adjunct assistant professor in the public health leadership program at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, received a certificate of appreciation in June from Ambassador Dr. Deborah Birx, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy.
[Photo: Mr. Manish Kumar]
Mr. Kumar, a former Rotary Peace Fellow, is senior technical specialist for health systems strengthening in the MEASURE Evaluation project, a U.S. Agency for International Development-funded project based at UNC’s Carolina Population Center.
The certificate was awarded in recognition of Mr. Kumar’s contributions to the outstanding development and maintenance of the DATIM (Data for Accountability, Transparency and Impact) data system of the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The work is supported through the MEASURE Evaluation project.
DATIM is a PEPFAR health information system (HIS) that enables the collection of various HIV health indicators, facility information and outcomes. These data facilitate evidence-based decisions to fulfill the PEPFAR mandate “to do the right things, in the right places, at the right time (right now) to save lives.”
The DATIM HIS captures all PEPFAR’s monitoring, evaluation and reporting indicators, and offers targeting capacity through geospatial information systems (GIS). It also facilitates site improvement through monitoring system data.
Currently, DATIM is being used in PEPFAR programs in more than 50 countries. The DATIM system is built on an adapted version of DHIS 2, the software platform used to collect health facility data in more than 40 countries.