Company Overview:
Palladium is a global leader in the design, development and delivery of Positive Impact – the intentional creation of enduring social and economic value. We work with foundations, investors, governments, corporations, communities and civil society to formulate strategies and implement solutions that generate lasting social, environmental and financial benefits.
For the past 50 years, we have been making Positive Impact possible. With a team of more than 2,500 employees operating in 90 plus countries and a global network of more than 35,000 technical experts, Palladium has improved – and is committed to continuing to improve – economies, societies and most importantly, people’s lives.
Palladium is a child-safe organisation, and screens applicants for suitability to work with children. We also provide equal employment to all participants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, veteran or marital status.
Project Overview
Translating Data for Implementation (Data.FI) award, Palladium is seeking a Database Administrator. This a seconded position to the South African National Department of Health, based in Pretoria.
Data.FI is a five-year global project funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Data.FI partners with PEPFAR programs to accelerate and sustain access to high-quality data to expedite HIV epidemic control and maintenance. Data.FI supports host country governments to enhance existing health information systems (HIS) and conduct in-depth analysis of HIV epidemiologic and program data to inform management responses to gaps in HIV and AIDS programming and sustain impact by supporting local partner transition.
In South Africa, Data.FI is supporting the National Department of Health (NDoH) to strengthen the national health information system, providing support to Tier.Net and the continued development of a national data warehouse solution. Data.FI also extends NDOH capacity to support national HIV policy implementation through a number of secondee positions.
Position Description
The Database Administrator will act as an NDOH resource to support the NDOH with establishing and maintaining the processes, infrastructure and capacity to centralize patient level TIER.Net and cached legacy ETR.Net data at the national level and at provincial levels, to facilitate epidemiologic and programmatic analyses, reporting, and broader programme surveillance. TIER.Net is a facility-level, non-networked, electronic patient management information system used to capture and interrogate HIV testing, ART patient, and TB patient data. ETR.Net is a legacy non-networked electronic patient management information system used to capture and interrogate Drug-Sensitive Tuberculosis (DS-TB) patient data at sub-district level.
The Database Administrator will manage the day-to-day centralization, collation and management of data within the provincial and national instances of TIER.Net and ETR.Net. Further, the Database Administrator will collaborate with Data Analysts to ensure routine interrogation of data completeness and quality, effective de-duplication of patient-level data, and sustained flow of data along the health system cascade to populate the centralized instances.
The position reports to the NDOH leads for technical direction and is based in central Pretoria. The Coordinator is expected to travel approximately 50% of the time.
Primary responsibilities
- Provide support to establishing and maintaining the processes and infrastructure for the national and provincial instances.
- Ensuring that all instances are fully functioning/operational.
- Oversee, curate, and facilitate flow of data from the sub-district level to the provincial and national levels, through regular communication with actors at each level of the health system
- Provide technical and troubleshooting support to provincial staff on the management and use of the provincial instances.
- Develop guidance and support materials to support sustained management and ownership of the provincial instances, as well as dissemination of, and adherence to, those guidance materials.
- Consistently monitor data completeness and quality within the instances, and conduct follow-up and support activities where data is missing, incomplete, or highly irregular.
- Support development of strategies to de-duplicate patient-level data at all levels of the data flow and contribute to implementation of those strategies.
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Conduct data-mining tasks on a regular basis to identify and rectify issues with the centralized data.
Other responsibilities as requested by manager
Reporting requirements
The role reports into the South African National Department of Health.
The post-holder will have limited reporting requirements into Data.FI/Palladium.
Minimum education and experience required
- Tertiary level degree in computer science, database administration, information systems, information technology, epidemiology, and/or public health information management
- Two years (preferably five years) demonstrated experience in managing the flow, aggregation, and collation of large data sets
- Preferably experience working with public sector institutions in South Africa, preferably with the National Department of Health
- Experience working with health information databases and/or “big data”
- Preferably experience in providing epidemiological technical assistance in public health programs, preferably related to HIV and TB data
Key competencies and professional expertise required
- Demonstrated expertise with SQL Server.
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Strong technical proficiency with MSOffice Suite.
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (written and oral English)
- Attention to detail, strong commitment to excellence
- Fast learner
- Analytical and critical thinking
- Results-oriented, able to multi-task and to work at a rapid pace
- Strong organizational skills
- Self-directed, able to work independently, set priorities, and manage time effectively
- Able to efficiently communicate and collaborate with physically dispersed managers and team members
- Approachable, able to build and maintain effective relationships with the team, colleagues, NDOH, and external partners
- Proactive, flexible, resourceful, resilient, able to resolve problems
- Values diversity, able to work in multicultural and multidisciplinary teams
- High ethical standards, integrity, honesty, openness and transparency
- Valid driver’s license.