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Growing Knowledge in Côte d'Ivoire: New Training Expands Healthcare Worker Forecasting and LMIS Expertise
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The Challenge With the highest prevalence rate of HIV infection in the West African region, Côte d’Ivoire has an urgent need for life-saving medicines. Until 2006, the country experienced regular stockouts of ARVs and opportunistic infection (OI) drugs at the central and peripheral levels.
The reason for stockouts was twofold: 1) the absence of a properly designed logistics management information system (LMIS), and resources trained in its use and 2) a lack of workers trained in quantifying, forecasting and supply planning for ARV and OI drugs and laboratory supplies. SCMS has worked with PEPFAR implementing partners and the country’s Ministry of Health to build the human resource capacity for carrying out these critical functions—growing resources from two pharmacists to a team of over 500 experts countrywide.
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Program Implementation In 2006, ARV/OI quantification was performed by two pharmacists at the central pharmacy (PSP). Instead of using actual data, their forecasts for ARV needs were based on assumptions calculated on an Excel spreadsheet. The process was not standardized; each ART facility and partner used its own unique data collection form. National ARV/OI quantification was developed without a supply plan. For lab supplies, a national team conducted some quantifications based on assumptions, but without data from treatment facilities. To ensure a standardized process for quantification, SCMS worked with MOH and PEPFAR implementing partners to design an ARV/OI LMIS and initiated a nationwide training program to scale up local expertise in quantification and LMIS.
Thanks to the breadth and depth of new skills and knowledge, commodities for Côte d’Ivoire are now purchased based on needs and not assumptions.
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Results and Outcomes To date, SCMS has trained more than 414 pharmacy managers at ART facilities in the new LMIS and 62 district medical doctors in system monitoring. Training has led to a dramatic increase in reporting, from 6 percent of facilities to 48 percent reporting monthly. An additional four pharmacists have been trained in warehousing standard operating procedures, leading to improved drug storage at the central pharmacy. Another 32 persons were trained in quantification, forecasting and supply planning. With the use of software tools, four quantifications have been completed. The MOH has also developed a national quantification committee of key partners to validate quantification methodologies and forecasts and avoid errors made in the past.
As new tools, systems and equipment emerge to facilitate scale-up of HIV/AIDS treatment, building the human resource capacity to use these tools is essential for program effectiveness. Thanks to the breadth and depth of new skills and knowledge, commodities for Côte d’Ivoire are now purchased based on needs and not assumptions, pharmacy managers are producing monthly reports accurately and on time, and human resources are being mobilized to their optimum potential.
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