Assessment of Performance and Challenges of Pharmaceuticals Inventory Management of the Public Health Facilities in West Shewa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia.
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Date
2020-06
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Addis Abeba University
Abstract
Background: As high as 40 percent of the health care budget was expended on
pharmaceuticals in developing countries, however significant proportions of the
population do not get access to even the most essential medicines. Weak
pharmaceutical inventory management is one of the factors that may contribute to
the problem as it can result in irrational utilization of drugs, blockade of financial
resources and/or stockout of essential medicines. The objective of this study was to
assess the performance and challenges of the pharmaceuticals inventory management
of public health facilities in West Shewa Zone, Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Generally, the
methods used in this thesis have been guided by the recommendations of the Logistics
Indicator Assessment Tool (LIAT) developed by USAID/DELIVER Project. Accordingly,
facility-based cross-sectional descriptive study design was followed. Among 98 total
health facilities, 17 of them were chosen by simple random sampling technique. Both
qualitative and quantitative data were collected. Qualitative data were collected from
10 participants through key informant interview method by using a semi-structured
interview guide and analyzed using a qualitative analysis technique (reviewing the
interview thoroughly, categorizing thematically, summarizing and finally writing down
the information by stating the finding), while quantitative data were collected using a
data abstraction forms and observation checklist and analyzed using descriptive
statistics. The data collection period was from May to June 2019. The average shelf
life of the selected medicines was 62.22%. None of the selected medicines were stocked
per the plan in all the facilities. An average inventory accuracy rate was 39.23%. The
wastage rate in studied facilities was 7.08%. The average order lead time was 31.10
days. The inventory turnover rate was 8.21 and the average percentage fulfillment of
a storage condition was 70.88%. Some of the major challenges identified include the
inability to dispose of a large quantity of expired medicine, inadequate storage space,
interrupted supply and inadequate manpower. The inventory management
performance of the study facilities were poor which was shown by lower inventory
accuracy rate, higher wastage rate and lower storage condition. Applying feasible
medicine disposal method, fulfilling the required manpower and sharing near expiry
medicines with other facilities are recommended.
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Keywords
Challenges, Essential, Facilities, Health, Inventory, Management and Medicines