Improving Data Availability of Malaria Products for Improved Decision Making in Guinea

In 2018, Guinea’s Ministry of Health (MOH) demonstrated its commitment to evidence-based decision making for health commodities by initiating the roll-out of a nationwide electronic logistics management information system (eLMIS) for a broad range of health programs. With technical and training support from the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program-Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project, the implementation of the eLMIS improved on-time and accurate reporting for every district, giving over 500 users in 38 districts and at the MOH level instant access to consumption and stock data for 454 public health facilities country-wide.

However, while the MOH was benefiting from the new eLMIS, the National Malaria Control Program (NMCP)—the country’s central body dedicated to malaria prevention and treatment—was still using a free, manually operated logistics management information system (LMIS) called Windev for data collection and analysis to inform requisition and procurement of malaria products.

Because the MOH, NMCP, and implementing partners each require malaria data from the same health facilities, public facility data entry officers were required to enter data into both systems, increasing workload and creating a risk for inconsistent data reporting and inefficient planning for malaria commodities. Meanwhile, the country’s 65 private health facilities were only able to report into Windev for malaria products, not the eLMIS.

Recognizing the need for all supply chain managers to have access at the same time to the same, consistent data for decision making, as well as the MOH’s success with the new eLMIS, in October 2019, GHSC-PSM presented the eLMIS platform to senior managers of the NMCP and proposed that the NMCP transition from using Windev to using the eLMIS. This would combine all private and public health facilities in one reporting system and allow the NMCP to access the same real time data and periodic reports as the MOH. The NMCP agreed to transition to the tool as an efficient and cost-effective health logistics data management system that could ensure greater commodity security for malaria programs and better health outcomes for the people of Guinea.

To complete the transition, GHSC-PSM first verified the existing data and ensured all public and private facilities were accounted for and incorporated into the eLMIS. In November 2019, GHSC-PSM organized and conducted trainings on the eLMIS system for NMCP staff and for data entry officers in the health facilities that had missing data, providing critical logistics information for managers of malaria health commodity distribution systems. One month later in December 2019, with new users (private health facilities and some public facilities) reporting into the eLMIS for the first time, the country’s reporting rate for malaria products reached 99 percent.