Working in partnership with USAID Afya Ugavi Activity which has provided Baringo County with technical assistance in health commodity management for about three years, Francis acknowledges that the USAID-funded project has made an enormous difference to health supply chain management in the sub-county.
Asked if there have been any changes in the way he conducts his work, Francis Komen is eager to share about a particular innovation introduced by USAID Afya Ugavi which in his opinion has had a positive impact.
“They [Afya Ugavi] came up with a dashboard which has really assisted us as a sub-county in terms of commodity management and knowing the stock status of our commodities in various facilities,” he says.
According to Francis, the family planning (FP) dashboard has made it easy for him and other commodity managers in the sub-county and county, to have access to vital information that is needed when making decisions that affect access and availability of family planning commodities. Using the FP dashboard, he can quickly tell the stock status of various commodities by merely pressing a few buttons on his laptop. The dashboard allows him to see which facilities may be overstocked or understocked with a commodity. It also enables him to know which health facilities have submitted their reports and which ones have not.
“The tool also assists us to check on other sub-counties. For instance, I can go in and look at Baringo Central and see if they have excess stock of commodities that I have need of in my sub-county, then I can then coordinate with my colleague in the other sub-county and organize how I can request the needed drugs from them."
The FP dashboard coupled with the end-month stock status monitoring activity also introduced by Afya Ugavi has made it possible for its users to make decisions on re-supply and redistribution of FP commodities, ensuring that health facilities are stocked according to plan with the whole range of contraceptives at all times. This impact is evidenced in the reduction in stock-out rates of the FP tracer commodity DMPA from 34% in December 2016 to 1% in August 2019.
