To have effective medical supply management system and to ensure non-interrupted adequate supplies to health facilities just in time across the nation, the Ministry of Health today launched electronic-Bhutan Medical Supplies Inventory System or e-BMSIS.
This migration from the manual into real time digital supplies inventory system is expected to save time and resources for the medical supply chain. It is also expected to ensure accuracy, timely and easy accessibility of information that will help managers and stakeholders make better, faster and effective decisions as per their requirements.
Health Minister Tandin Wangchuk said it is timely to have such a system to facilitate the health workforce and make timely stock requisition. “Medical supplies entail requisition, procurement and distribution management as well as internal consumption process,” said the minister. “For optimal management of medical supplies, managing information regarding medical supplies and using that information for decision making for effective communication is essential,” he added.
A news release from the Health Ministry says the current medical supplies management involves manual approach where the stakeholders manage the flow of information using papers, phone calls and emails. Such manual approach resulted in human errors, lack of information for decision making, delay in detecting errors and some health facilities even faced shortages while some needed to manage the wastages.
“The Department of Medical Supplies and Health Infrastructure (DMSHI) has initially tried with a standalone system called the BIGBY but this system was also found to be inadequate,” said Tashi Penjore, Officiating Director of DMSHI. “Health Ministry was also offered to use one of the systems by the UNFPA channel software, but it was also found inadequate to manage the medical supplies.
With the new system, the quality assurance information will be available for each year. Reports can be generated in real time allowing management to assess the items status at any health facilities and items status segregated as departments.
The ministry aims to ensure that all the hospitals and BHU’s fully adopt the system by the end of September and is working on to provide the internet access to all the hospitals and BHU’s.
Currently there are 31 hospitals and 208 Basic Health Unit in the country.
