Description of Session
mBrana, a locally developed mobile stock management tool, has already been deployed in Ethiopia for vaccine management at districts (in nearly 800 districts as of June 2019) by the Federal Ministry of Health and the Ethiopian Pharmaceuticals Supply Agency with the support of John Snow Inc. The system allows for seamless supply chain management including electronic ordering, and is interoperable with higher level stock management systems (central and regional/hub levels) to provide real time data visibility. This presentation describes a pilot to implement the system at health facility level. The pilot quantified benefits of the system and user acceptance, in order to improve system performance and help policy makers decide on the desirability of scaling the system to the more than 3,500 health facilities in the country. The existing mBrana system was modified in-country for use at health centers. In 2019, the system was deployed to seven facilities in a district in Tigray for six months with baseline data captured prior to implementation. The pilot demonstrated significant benefits: use of the standard vaccine request form improved from 48% (paper) to 100% (electronic), data quality increased from 27% to 73%, and vaccine availability from 81% to 97%. Users were generally happy with the system, and proposed some important new features for the future. The pilot provided real time data visibility down to the health facility level and electronic ordering of monthly vaccine supply from facilities to the EPSA hub. The system is still in use and stakeholders are currently considering how to expand deployment to the entire country. Having a district program head already familiar with the system to support implementation was a major facilitator for success. The presentation will provide background and contextual information, discuss how the system was deployed, results achieved, lessons learned and future recommendations for expansion.
