225981 Improving health outcomes through performance monitoring of supply chain management in public health programs

Monday, November 8, 2010 : 9:10 AM - 9:30 AM

Dana G. Aronovich, MHS , John Snow, Inc., Arlington, VA
Linda Allain , John Snow, Inc., Arlington, VA
Adriano Sommerlatte , John Snow, Inc., Arlington, VA
Kelly Hamblin , John Snow, Inc., Arlington, VA
Marie Tien , John Snow, Inc., Arlington, VA
Improving overall public health outcomes requires the reliable availability of a range of quality health products. Ensuring this supply, in turn, requires effective and affordable supply chain management (SCM) strategies to efficiently manage and distribute these products. The application of appropriate metrics should lead to improved supply chain performance, increasing product availability to clients. One challenge in establishing world-class performance for public health supply chains is the lack of agreed-upon performance metrics and the data to benchmark logistics programs in lower- and middle-income country public sector health programs. Commonly used supply chain indicators such as stock out rates are merely management outputs, not sensitive to specific performance issues. They therefore mask the causes of weak performance in specific activities such as transportation and inventory management, hindering a timely response to problems. On the other hand, finer supply chain metrics highlight more precisely where interventions will improve performance. Supply chain metrics are commonly applied in private sector logistics operations, but may need to be adapted to developing countries' context. The focus of the current work is to develop a set of relevant and measurable supply chain metrics that promote operational performance improvement at all levels of service from central medical stores to hospitals to health facilities providing essential health services. This comprehensive set of supply chain metrics covers issues of quality, responsiveness, cost, and productivity. Improving supply chain performance by monitoring specific, measurable metrics can lead to increased product availability and ultimately to better health outcomes.

Learning Areas:
Administration, management, leadership
Conduct evaluation related to programs, research, and other areas of practice
Program planning
Public health administration or related administration

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify a number of metrics for monitoring supply chain management performance for public sector health programs. 2. Describe how these metrics can be used to improve health product availability to support public health programs and to improve health outcomes.

Keywords: Evaluation, Performance Measures

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am qualified to present because I am the primary author of this document.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.