Data collectors' review day 26 June 2017

The first review day for 2017 took place on Monday 26 June. As manager of the data and quality control unit, SHM's deputy director Sima Zaheri kicked off the day with a welcome and an update of all the ongoing and upcoming projects within Stichting HIV Monitoring.

After the opening, SHM’s data protection officer, Brenda Tuk, gave an overview of the new European Union privacy act, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Brenda highlighted the key features of the GDPR and explained what the effect it will have on SHM.  During the presentation, the data collectors were invited to think about and discuss the consequences of these changes in privacy law in terms of their work as data collectors. All in all, it was a very valuable presentation and discussion, in which the overriding message was: ‘Information security is a joint effort!”. 

During the second half of the morning, Anna Wisse, one of SHM’s data collectors, gave a presentation about human papilloma virus and cervical dysplasia, during which she also discussed the collection of data on these items. In her presentation, Anna focussed both the current and upcoming new data entry systems, illustrating the steps that are being taken to ensure that the transition goes as smoothly as possible.

The new data entry system is being developed under the project name LISA, and the morning ended with an update by Sima Zaheri on the LISA project. The update included information on the different phases of the project and a summary of the current stage of development.

The new data entry system remained the focus of the afternoon session. Shula Grivell, protocol coordinator and one of the people building the new system, gave a demonstration of completed sections of the system and explained how the data collectors’ way of working will change. Subsequently, the data collectors split up into smaller groups, each of which was led by a member of the new system’s building or testing team. In this way, the data collectors were able to become better acquainted with the new system and get a taste of the new data collection process.

The day was rounded off with a short question and answer session, where all the participants were invited to ask questions or provide feedback on the LISA project. Once again, we look back on another successful review day!