Click here to listen to Health Uninterrupted Episode 2: The Global Impact of the EUV Survey!
Tune into Episode 2 of the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management project's (GHSC-PSM) podcast, Health Uninterrupted! In episode 1, we looked at how we're using our End-Use Verification (EUV) Survey is happy to increase data visibility and support our government partners in Nigeria with their decision-making for maternal, newborn, and child health commodities.
In Episode 2, we're taking a wider look at the survey's impact on a global scale. You will hear from our experts in Ghana, Guinea and Liberia, on how EUV filled in data gaps and drove decision-making, informing efforts like staff training and cold chain management. The episode showcases how EUV can improve patient health outcomes, especially for mothers and children.
Listen to the second episode of Health Uninterrupted here! We hope you enjoy it and learn something new! The transcript for this episode can be read below. For more info on the End-Use Verification (EUV) survey, visit www.ghsupplychain.org/euvsurvey.
Transcript
Seunfunmi Tinubu (ST): Hello, and welcome to another episode of Health Uninterrupted. A podcast brought to you by the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Procurement and Supply Management project, also known as GHSC-PSM. We help countries get reliable data to improve their health logistics so that moms and children can have medical supplies. Whenever they visit the hospital or local health clinic anywhere in the country where they live.
I'm your host Seunfunmi Tinubu and in this episode, we will be looking at the different global uses of the End-Use Verification survey, also known as the EUV survey. Showing how this tool is versatile enough to operate in different contexts and contribute to stronger health supply chains in the countries where we operate.
The EUV Survey is a health facility survey used in 17 countries to determine the availability of commodities for a variety of health programs including family planning and maternal newborn and child health (MNCH) commodities.
In the first episode of the Health Uninterrupted podcast we spoke with Olukemi Sofa, MNCH manager about the role of the survey in Nigeria for MNCH commodities. In this episode, we will take a wider look at the role of the EUV survey in a few other countries such as Ghana, Guinea, and Liberia. The survey helps to bring countries a new method of operation when existing methods prove insufficient. In Liberia, Senior Technical Advisor Munyah Dunor explains how data collection took place pre-EUV.
Munyah Dunor: So before the introduction of the end-use verification survey in Liberia data collection process for various purposes relied mostly on different methods and sources. It was normally collected at health facilities by health authorities and agencies through the medical records.
Frequencies were not something that were constants and the accuracies of these data collections were somehow also questionable because the methodologies were not always constant. With the introduction of the EUV survey, like especially to enhance the accuracy and reliability of data by validating the actual uses and consumption of resources.
ST: When issues in data collection arise, the end result is bad for patients in need of essential medicines. Emmanuel Menyah, Technical Lead for Monitoring, Evaluation, and Communications activities in Ghana explains how outdated systems can disrupt the supply chain.
Emmanuel Menyah: Although paper-based logistics forms were introduced along the line to help compound and report supply chain data, there were issues in relation to data quality gaps and lack of a standardized system for generating and sharing analytics outputs, and this made that entire process a bit challenging, making it difficult for supply chain actors to address product availability challenges.
ST: Data quality issues made it harder for patients to have the commodities they need when they need them most. When we recognize these difficulties, it motivates us to develop solutions so that the patients can live happier and healthier lives. The EUV survey was created as an answer to the data collection issues faced by these countries. Implementing the EUV brings a greater insight into stock availability in countries where it operates like Liberia. Munyah explains from a Liberian context.
Munyah Dunor: It captures data on stock availabilities for maternal and newborn child commodities. We would try to look at the availabilities of folic acid, magnesium sulfate, oxytocin, [and] paracetamol.
ST: However, the benefits of the EUV survey go beyond just capturing stock availability. The training that is provided to data collectors equips them with transferable skills that go beyond the survey. In Guinea, one of the main issues for the Ministry of Health was human resource management. Knowledge Management and Communications Specialist Abu Quisia, sheds more light on the situation.
Abu Quisia: Evaluation revealed that most of the people that are working in a supply chain system are people that learn on the job. There is no structure in Guinea that trains supply chain managers. So the training available here is the training of pharmacists and in the curriculum of training pharmacies, there was nothing mentioned about management of supply chain.
ST: The introduction of the EUV survey, identified the need for training so that supply chain managers would be adequately equipped to utilize the data provided by the survey. For the implementation of the EUV to be successful actors along the supply chain and data collectors had to receive training. Again, Abu in Guinea elaborates.
Abu Quisia: So the result of the EUV is generally shared with supply chain managers at district level, which shows health facilities that are performing well and health facilities that are not performing well. So this information is usually used by those managers to plan supervision and to plan as to what to be done to help them improve the services, to ensure a contribution to the national improvement in the performance of the national supply chain system.
ST: Beyond this training GHSC-PSM has partnered with universities in Guinea. To train, future supply chain managers and recent graduates.
Abu Quisia: The training that the project is supporting now, the modules developed represent 22 hours of credit. So usually we work with the universities to identify students that exemplify during the training that, have been used for the past three years to collect data on the field.
ST: Our approach with the EUV survey in Guinea is one example of how it can create new opportunities to strengthen a national supply chain in different areas. With our different country teams, once data from the EUV survey is collected, there are different systems of collecting, sharing, and disseminating that information. Emmanuel explains how in Ghana a popular mobile messaging app is being used as a tool for data dissemination.
Emmanuel Menyah: Then for this activity, the survey manager and about one or two M & E officers review, validate, and provide feedback on the quality of data that has been submitted to the platform. Once this is done, information is shared on the WhatsApp platform, which is created purposely for the EUV, allowing the various teams to quickly identify and address gaps in relation to the data that has been submitted.
ST: WhatsApp’s ubiquitous presence in Ghana makes it an easy choice to use as a platform to quickly share information. In Liberia, Munyah shares how a mobile application called SurveyCTO is being used for data collection and being linked to Microsoft platforms for ease of use.
Munyah Dunor: So in the SurveyCTO, we approve the data. The data is valid and it can be used for reporting. So as long as we have received the data to that platform, we are able to download the data in an Excel format. Once we download the data, we clean the data and we put that back into Power BI.
ST: When data is collected from the survey, it informs decision-making that can better serve patients. Munyah explains how Liberian mothers are benefiting from this decision-making through its positive impact on the EPI cold chain.
Munyah Dunor: So, the EPI cold chain at the facility level, this is used to create a kind of cold chain required for keeping certain vaccines to be able to preserve either those vaccines so they can remain under the required temperatures. The EUV, the impact it has for mothers in Liberia, because the EUV is being able to provide a real time information to health authorities that they are used to make an informed decision and these decisions have been creating a positive impact on mothers in Liberia, because they will be able to go to those facilities, especially when, for example, the oxytocin will realize that it will not keep under the required temperatures. And from the EUV, we're able to provide a recommendation and the government were able to develop a kind of policies that all vaccines and oxytocin should be kept under the required temperatures.
ST: In Guinea, Abu explains how the survey is aiding decision-makers at the national level in evaluating the country supply chain.
Abu Quisia: The deployment of the electronic logistic management information system nationwide to all health facilities, which is also a good idea that is providing decision makers at central level to get adequate information at the click of a few buttons. EUV has provided an opportunity to do an independent evaluation of the national health supply chain system that helps decision-makers to look at the report of the various EUV and decide this is what we need to do to improve or maintain the improvement that we've made in National Health Supply Chain System in Guinea.
ST: While we have taken a look at some of the current uses of the EUV survey. We're constantly thinking about how to develop the survey for future use in other countries. Maternal, newborn, and child health specialist, Brittany Stollar shares her perspective on how the survey will continue to evolve.
Brittany Stollar: When it comes to how the EUV survey could be developed in the future, I think one of the strengths of the EUV survey is its adaptability. When it was first implemented back in 2018 from then to now, there it has gone through multiple rounds of revisions, changes, updates, to continue making sure that the EUV is focusing on the areas that are most useful to the countries that we work within.
So in that same fashion, as we look towards the future as needs shift, we would be able to update the EUV accordingly. We've been adding new questions into the survey, new areas of interest have been adapted in the last year.
ST: The adaptable nature of the survey means that we'll be able to use it, to serve patients across the countries in which we operate. Brittany shares why this tool remains instrumental in ensuring positive health outcomes for mothers and their babies, helping them to have a happier, healthier future.
Brittany Stollar: We've already seen a pretty substantial impact that the EUV survey has had on maternal, newborn, and child health outcomes in our country so far. For example, the EUV was used to identify and highlight that there were gaps in cold chain storage coverage for oxytocin, which does require being stored in the cold chain through the life of the product.That data was used to advocate for increased cold chain coverage for oxytocin. So, we now are seeing significantly improved numbers from when we first introduced that question to the survey. And I hope to see continued improvement in that area as we look towards the future.
ST: And that brings us to the end of this episode, where we have discussed the global impact of the end-use verification survey. Until next time, I'm your host Seunfunmi Tinubu and you've been listening to episode two of Health Uninterrupted. A health supply chain podcast brought to you by the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Procurement and Supply Management project.
