A new health management system is helping public hospitals in Kirinyaga county address issue of drug shortage by providing real time information on stockouts.
The system, which was piloted at the Kerugoya County Referral Hospital, will ensure medical facilities have adequate supply of medicine around the clock.
Health executive Gladys Kimingi said the Health Management Information System has helped improve decision making on drug supplies in all medical facilities in the county.
“Unlike in the past where we could wait for respective health facility managers to send us reports of drug stocks, we are now able to get real time information on the same, so we will know which drug needs to be replenished and for which facility,” Kimingi said.
HMIS is a data collection system specifically designed to support planning, management, and decision making in health facilities and organisations.
Speaking on Tuesday at the hospital, Kimingi said “the collected data is used for planning, budgeting and evaluation of services provision.”
“Evidence-based decision making is critically important for the appropriate use of scarce resources like drugs particularly when resource are limited,” she added.
Kimingi said pharmacists in all medical facilities have been trained on how to use the system and one has to login using personal password so as to dispense any drug.
“This system is only operated by authorised staff. Each has a password and no medicine can be dispensed at the dispensary, health centre, the hospital body or even our main store without going through the system,” she added.
The system is being rolled out in all service points in the medical facilities so as to complete the patients’ treatment chain.
“We are in the process of rolling out the system in all the service points. We have completed piloting it in our pharmacy and it is working very well,” Kimingi said.
However, the Health executive clarified that not all drugs would be found in all medical facilities.
“It’s good for the public to know that drugs are stocked as to the level of the hospital. There those medicines which will be found in a dispensary and those than can only be found in level four, five or six hospitals and that is why we have referrals,” she said.
Governor Anne Waiguru assured residents of adequate drug supply now that the system was in place.
She said her administration has supplied all the medical facilities with enough drugs and “no one should be told to buy drugs outside the facility.”
The governor asked leaders to keep politics out of healthcare, saying the sector had become a target for negative propaganda from people who want to use it to gain political mileage ahead of August 9 election.
“We have people who are desperate to win support of voters, and they are manufacturing lies about everything, including sensitive areas like healthcare," the governor said.
(edited by Amol Awuor)