A functional County health supply chain is an important pillar in availing safe, efficacious and affordable health products to the citizens. This is in line with the Universal Health Coverage agenda.
Previously, Vihiga County experienced fragmentation in managing components of the county health supply chain such as supply planning (procurement plan), order processing, supportive supervision, training of staff on health supply chain aspects, storage and warehousing practices, linkages with facilities and national programs.
There was a dormant Commodity Security Technical Working Group. Processes were manual with limited or no use of technology for increasing visibility of health commodities and commodities’ data. There was no clear structure to coordinate the health supply chain system in the County. There was low or no consumption of certain budget vote heads meant for some product categories within the allocated budget.
Data quality issues such as accuracy and quality were common. There was inadequate use of data for decision making. A baseline assessment conducted between January and June 2020 by the County Supportive Supervision Team in 69 public health facilities showed suboptimal HPT management practices as per the following mean scores on key indicators: resolution of previous action points 46.75%; storage of health products 68.72%; inventory management 42.67%; availability and use of commodity data MIS tools 74.40%; verification of commodity data 65.56%; availability of guidelines and job aids for commodity management 36.65%; accountability of HPTs 58.58%; and the composite (final) score 56.19%.
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