Maharashtra Public Health Department's E-Aushadhi SCM System

Supply chain automation of the drug management system in Maharashtra Public Health Department leads to 20% reduction in cost of medicine, and provides an accurate view of state of drugs warehouse and inventories across the state.

Public Health Department is the nodal department for administration, decision and policy making related to public health of Maharashtra. PHD’s outlined objective is to strengthen the state healthcare at primary, secondary and tertiary levels by providing greater levels of access to quality healthcare, particularly in the under-served and backward regions. The department implements various national level health programs in the state, provides trainings to its medical and non-medical staff and is responsible for improving knowledge, attitude and behavior of the community by giving health education.

The organization focuses on providing an array of citizen centric services across the State with its various policies, legislation and administration. The department has formulated and executed various health programmes in line with National Health Policy enabling a better administration, better health, better care, and better value for all.

The department along with implementing various programmes and schemes focuses on strengthening its internal setup and enhancing its Government capabilities by adopting various e-governance practices.

The drug management system in the state of Maharashtra witnessed the need to automate its supply chain in order to have better stock efficiency, improve stock visibility and gain control over drug distribution in the state. The state government realized that the computerization of drug warehouse could reap added benefits like reduction in the invoice processing cost, increasing in the supply chain capacity by reducing manual intervention to minimal levels, improvement in the working capital management and real time use of business intelligence for scaled efficiencies.

The Challenges

The system aimed at bringing enhanced transparency across all levels and hence found a big resistance in implementation and non-cooperation. It was important to ensure that the users continue the operations without disrupting the critical activities. A lot of brainstorming was done on which options to look at whether a commercial off the shelf or a custom made software, which technologies are suited to build such software and whether they are sustainable, the costs and manpower involved, the feasibility and viability of such a large scale project. There were apprehensions on the implementation and sustainability of such a huge project across the state. The operational staff faced different problems which were not envisaged in the operating manuals.

Following are some of the challenges faced during the implementation:

• Limited computer proficiency
• Requirement gathering created an issue owing to non-cooperation
• Limited internet connectivity
• Limited support from the nodal person
• Too many iterations in customizations and non-freezing
  of modules
• Limited IT support at PHC level

The Implementation

e-Aushadhi, a web based Supply Chain Management System is a major step towards adapting technology to improve supply chain of the drugs in DDWH, Sub Stores and further Drug Distribution Centers (DDC).

The Application deals with the procurement and management of the stock of drugs, sutures and surgical items required by the District Drug Ware House(DDWH), issuance of items to PHC, District Hospitals in the state. Various DDWHs send the consolidated requirements to the procurement department in PHD. The HQ gives the approval and supplies the items or the purchase section takes the decision by opening tender or placing the order directly to the contracted supplier. The Purchase Committee purchases the items from the market by surveying or through the government cell.

The Procurement Module of the e-Aushadhi software includes generation of Purchase Order, payments terms and conditions, allocation of the consignee list and scheduling the supply to consignee. Users can also view the amount in that particular purchase head at the time of finalizing any item for purchase. Demand forecasting & generation in HQ/DDWH play a central role in supply chain management system. Inventory Management includes classification / categorization of items, codification etc. It ensures that items with constant demand are constantly available at the DDWH so that they are further supplied to the sub stores & Distribution Counters without delay. Moreover, users have complete detail of stock in hand at various levels, supplies in pipeline, distribution and consumption pattern in the state.

Quality Control includes the proper monitoring & control and assures the QC pass availability of the drugs at all distribution levels. The solution links QC with the supplier performance & payment, which can be controlled by the HQ.

e-Aushadhi is modelled on the unique combination of ‘Administration Centric and Pharmacy staff centric’ paradigm, thus providing benefits to the providers of healthcare and
the patients.

The Result

The biggest achievement of the solution has been the reduction in the cost of medicines by 20% or more, which has further enabled the department to procure more medicines in the same budget.

e-Aushadi streamlined the process of inventory management and brought transparency in the system. Different users at all levels have a better and much more accurate view of the state of drugs warehouse and inventories across the state. This accurate root level reporting and monitoring has in fact been one of the major achievements of this application. Stock ledgers, as a result of this application, are now up to date and are managed much more efficiently.

The MIS module provides critical reports that lead to efficient monitoring and decision making. Separate interface for the laboratories further improves the Quality status.

More than 3500 users are using this application regularly updating their information at more than 1800 locations. The numbers are expected to grow to 5500+ users at more than 2500+ locations in another year. The deep involvement and constant engagement of users has been the driving point of success with this application.