Country: Mozambique
Closing date: 29 Apr 2017
The Institution
The Manhiça Health Research Centre (Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça, CISM) was created in 1996 to promote and conduct biomedical research in priority health areas. Since its creation, the Centre has been developing its activities under a bilateral cooperation programme between the Governments of Mozambique and Spain, and with the support of the Hospital Clínic / Universitat de Barcelona (through the Fundació Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica).
In this context, the CISM aims to be a centre of excellence in biomedical research and generate evidence to guide public health policy countries in the world. CISM’s researchers participate and coordinate international research projects in different areas as Malaria, HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis or Diarrheal Diseases among others.
In order to effectively support these international research projects, the CISM implements three main platforms: the Demographic Surveillance System (DSS), the Laboratory and the Manhiça District Hospital and Health Centre. Our DSS covers a population of more than 150.000 inhabitants and produces the required information to locate and make the study participants follow up. The Laboratory works based in several international standards for clinical research laboratories such as the Good Clinical and Laboratory Practices (GCLP) and the ISO 9001:2008. And the Clinic Department is responsible of implementing the Morbidity Surveillance System and for monitoring and coordinate clinical activities within the different research projects.
These three main CISM’s platforms produce a considerable amount of information which must be rigorously processed to be analyzed by researchers and generate good evidence.
General Objectives
The main goal of this position is to assure that the information being collected within the CISM’s platforms has the quality required by the research projects running at the centre. The Data Centre department, responsible of pre-processing all the information collected from the field before being analyzed by subsequent stakeholders, must enable the required capacities in order to measure the information quality as well as activating the corresponding processes to keep this quality over a well defined set of standards.
For systematizing all the Data Management tasks needed at the CISM, the Data Centre department plans to create a Data Management Unit. This unit must provide the required data management services, initially over the data being produced by the previously described platforms, and later over more specific data being produced by the different studies running at the centre.
One of the main objectives of this position is to create the Data Management Unit structure according to the Data Centre department context as well as the general CISM context. At the date of this publication, the CISM has a team of, between 5 and 10, Data Managers among its personnel. The role of the candidate will be focused on the organization of this team within the Date Centre department structure. Furthermore, the candidate will have to define and implement the needed procedures in order to reach, within this structure, the required data quality as well as identifying any deviation from the defined set of quality standards.
Therefore, the candidate will work on the establishment of a well defined data quality framework in the context of the Data Centre department as an independent unit. The candidate must analyze current data management requirements and define the structure and the operational functioning of this new unit. Moreover, the candidate must design the required tools to implement all the defined processes and to monitor and measure data quality at any time.
Finally, the candidate will work in the context of the Data Centre department at CISM. Therefore, she or he must work closely coordinated with the head of this department and with a long-term IT consultant who is currently supporting the Data Centre, in order to achieve the adoption of these new processes and structure. The candidate must transfer all the required know-how to the new established team, for the new unit to be sustainable in a long-term period. However, the candidate will report to the centre’s direction and this position will be framed within the CISM structure as a consultancy position.
Task and Responsibilities:
- Analyze the current Data Management work being carried at CISM as well as the data quality requirements currently on place.
- Design/Implement a structure for systematizing the Data Management tasks according to the previously stated requirements.
- Design/Implement the operational functioning of this new Data Management structure.
- Design/Implement processes for assuring the quality of the information being collected and assessing whether the information being collected is of high completeness and reliability.
- Design/Implement metrics and indicators to control the established quality patterns and standards.
Design/Implement required tools to support the quality defined processes.
Education and Experience:Essentially a bachelor’s degree related to Computer Science, Data Engineering or Statistics.
Master’s degree or at least 2 years of experience in the Data Management area will be required (Preferably in the biomedical area).
Required web programming and software development knowledge.
Required database administration knowledge.
Desirable experience with Data Entry/Collection Instruments (ODK, REDCap orOpenClinca)
Desirable experience with Laboratory Information Management Systems.
Desirable experience with Demographic Surveillance Systems.
Fluency in written and spoken English (Portuguese or Spanish as an asset).
Skills:Being able to work in very different contexts and with the required flexibility to implement complex solutions in low-resource settings.
Being empathic enough to work with professionals from very different cultures, mindsets and ways of work.
Being persistent enough to execute complex plans in contexts with a lot of setbacks.
Being able to work in a team and with the required sensitivity to guide people towards new ways of performing their daily activities.
Being context aware while executing all the activities required.
Conditions:We offer a 1-year contract (renewable to 1 additional year).
The salary will be determined according to the candidate's experience and according to internal salary scales.
Immediate incorporation.
How to apply:
Candidates must send a CV and a cover letter to: job@isglobal.org with the subject heading DataCollection_MANAGER
Closing date for the receipt of applications is April the 30th, 2017
Applications will be accepted until 22h00 CET of the closing date.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.