Involves obtaining health resources, managing health supplies, and delivering them to health providers and patients.
Published in Chapter:
The Impact of mHealth on Supply Chain Management of Medical Supplies in Village Clinics: A Case of Cstock mHealth in Malawi
Mwai Chipeta (Mangochi District Hospital, Malawi) and Donald Flywell Malanga (University of Livingstonia, Malawi)
Copyright: © 2022
|Pages: 28
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8915-1.ch006
Abstract
This chapter reports the results of a study that evaluated the impact of an mHealth system named Cstock on the supply chain management of medical supplies in village clinics of Mangochi district in Malawi. The study found that Cstock was used for requesting health products, supply, and resupply from healthcare facilities. In terms of quality, it was reported that the system was fast, easy to learn, and rarely displayed error reports. Cstock mHealth also yielded positive impacts through time and cost savings, improved communication, and availability of essential medical stocks at all levels of the supply chain and improved data visibility for decision-making. However, poor network coverage, lack of power source for charging phone batteries, absence of monetary incentives, lack of technical support compromised the effective utilisation of the system. The chapter offers insights to policy makers, implementers, and research practitioners on how to build resilience in the management of medical supply chain in a primary healthcare setting through the use of innovative mHealth technology.