- Information management: Improve data collection and information sharing to drive coordinated, cost-effective decision-making.
- Quantification, procurement and distribution: Ensure that supply chain
logistics across all supply chain system organizations are effectively managed and overseen, and build site capacity for storing and dispensing drugs, collecting data and ordering lab products, and clearing, warehousing, and distributing drugs.
- Capacity building: Train clinical site dispensers to provide patients with high-quality, best-value
Activities and Impact
Warehousing and distribution: SCMS is working with the Government of Vietnam to ensure PEPFAR-supported government sites receive continuous supplies of ARV medicines through creating a site reporting system, a centralized data collection point, and a centralized warehousing and distribution system. We are also conducting workshops and one-on-one consultations to meet the training needs of pharmacists and nurses who distribute ARVs to patients.
Procurement: SCMS led the first national five-year forecast of ARV’s in March 2010, which was used to develop the Government of Vietnam’s HIV/AIDS strategy through 2015. The forecast highlighted funding needs for the five-year period based on the VAAC’s ability to meet its target of 70 percent coverage of eligible adult patients by 2015.
Logistics management information system (LMIS): SCMS has worked with the Government of Vietnam to implement a central LMIS. Since September 2005, the number of ART sites receiving goods through the centralized system has expanded from 1 to 500. To date, the LMIS has reported that 43,000 patients are receiving ART.
Training: SCMS piloted four self-learning modules to train dispenser once they start their job instead of waiting for periodic workshops. Dispensers who participated in the self-learning module pilot tested comparably to those who participated in similar classroom trainings, with no significant difference in the two groups’ reported levels of understanding and confidence in using the course materials which address dispensing, stock management, reporting, patient counseling and general information on HIV/AIDS. Due to the success of the July 2009 pilot, SCMS is providing the modules to all dispensers joining the program and making training more immediately accessible and cost-effective.