Application of the Geographic Information System (GIS) in the Drug Logistics Management Information System (LMIS) at the district level in Malawi : Opportunities and Challenges

摘要

The district pharmacies use a computerised information system to monitor the flow of productsfrom the central warehouse to health services delivery points. It helps drug logistics and healthprogram managers to determine which health facilities are understocked or overstocked amongothers. But drug logistics information generated from this system is only in the table format. Thereis not spatial information added to it which can help the program managers to determine actuallocations of health facilities and environmental factors affecting them so that they can have enrichedinformation for their day-to-day work.The main goal of this study was to identify some opportunities and challenges of applying the GISin the drug LMIS at the district level in the Ministry of Health in Malawi. Since the researchinvolved the introduction of the GIS in the drug LMIS, it was decided to experiment the GIS in thedrug LMIS in order to find out opportunities and challenges. The framed field experiment was usedas the research strategy and interviews, document analysis, prototype evaluation and observation asdata sources whose data analysis was qualitative.It has been found out that the idea of introducing the GIS in the drug LMIS is very good but itrequires a lot of effort, commitment and resources for successful implementation. Apart from theGIS being used only by the pharmacy technicians, as the research was focusing on, other druglogistics and health staff were also interested in the project. The GIS would also help thestatisticians, environmental health officers and drug logistics officers.Some opportunities and challenges that could exist when introducing the GIS, basically involvetechnologies, organisation, standards and data integration. It has been observed that the technicalside of implementing the GIS in the drug LMIS is not difficult because the Ministry of Health hasintroduced computer technologies before so some required tools and equipment are available thatcan be used in the GIS. The main issue for the successful implementation is organisational in thesense that if the management of the Central Medical Stores is committed, it is easy to get allnecessary resources and support to do all the activities discussed above. Acquisition of tools andequipment, user training, data standards, data collection, data integration, data sharing andcooperation of participants will require support from the management in the Ministry of Health.