Description of Session
Ethiopia has made significant investments in digitizing the public health supply chain which has resulted in an increased availability of data. However, data availability alone is not enough to transform the supply chain performance. One also needs to institute a “data use culture” to drive impactful, tangible and transformative change. JSI Ethiopia in collaboration with the Ethiopian Pharmaceutical Supply Agency (EPSA) has designed the Supply Chain System Strengthening & Quality Teams (SCSS & QTs) network, which is a data-driven and people-centered approach to achieve the common goal of improved product availability, and heightened performance of the supply chain. The approach was designed through a consultative workshop with stakeholders. Teams are composed of different expertise of 8-10 people who meet monthly and follow an innovate-review-do approach to use data and create data culture at EPSA, identify and prioritize supply chain problems, conduct root cause analysis and implement solutions. The teams monitor selected supply chain Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), develop a data use map and track the performance of each KPI’s through an online dashboard that makes EPSA’s supply chain data accessible in real-time through visual presentation. The data syncs with Vitas, mBrana, and Dagu data whenever connected to the internet to provide on the ground inventory levels. Vitas is an enterprise-wide software which directs supply operations at the warehouse level, capturing real-time commodity movements across the warehouse network, as well as expiries, losses, and adjustments. mBrana is an inventory management system designed to manage daily transactions for vaccines and long lasting insecticide nets (LLINs). And Dagu is an inventory management system designed to manage daily transactions at health facilities.
