Assessment of Health Commodities Inventory Management Practices and Challenges: The Case of Zewditu Memorial Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Semahegn, Azeb (2017) Assessment of Health Commodities Inventory Management Practices and Challenges: The Case of Zewditu Memorial Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Masters thesis, Addis Ababa University.

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Abstract

Background: Health commodities inventory management practices provide current information on quantities of health commodities consumed as well as enables to accurately estimate requirements for future use. A poorly functioning health commodities inventory management can lead to frequent stock outs leading to services interruptions or overstock. The objective of the study was to assess the health commodities inventory management practice of the Zewditu Memorial Hospital using primary data that was collected through a semi-structured questionnaire, observation check list & interview. Out of the 91 questionnaires that were distributed to the purposively elected employees of the hospital, 77 (84.6%) of them were collected back and used for the analysis .Besides 4 hospital stores were visited & all the required information were included in this study .Data was analyzed using descriptive statics . The study found that ZMH health commodities to be long-term agreements between the hospital and its suppliers, maintain proper store management the majority of the store managers had adequate knowledge how to store and practiced health commodities and they had also a positive attitude towards the importance of appropriate storage of commodities, obsolete, expired, or damaged inventories properly identified and segregated, inventory records reconciled to advantage reports on a regular basis and management have review the reconciliation of physical inventory counts to the inventory records applied at ZMH but ,uses automatic stock tracking and adequate detailed written inventory instructions and procedures exist, uses Enterprise Resource Planning system, maintains a data base for all suppliers, uses Just In Time stock control system and an integrated information sharing system were not applicable at ZMH. Finally from the study it can be concluded that the main challenges of the hospital in managing inventory are: lack of modern technologies, insufficient funding, lack of inventory management training, the length of bureaucratic processes in the procurement system and stock out of health commodities. In general the consequences of the above were occurred high level of stock out which might have leaded to services interruptions at ZMH health commodities. Based on these findings, the study recommends that government allocates more funds to public hospitals to be invested in modern information technologies because this will lead to increased information sharing, reduction of costs and improved quality of health services. In addition, inventory management training should be given to improve the availability and the quality of services in ZMH.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Health commodities inventory management, stores, medicines, medical supplies medical equipments, laboratory commodities
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Divisions:	Africana
Depositing User:	Tim Khabala
Date Deposited:	04 Oct 2018 09:37
Last Modified:	04 Oct 2018 09:37
URI:	http://thesisbank.jhia.ac.ke/id/eprint/5932

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