Management Sciences For Health Hands over Electronic Pharmaceutical Management System to South African Government
Management Sciences For Health Hands over Electronic Pharmaceutical Management System to South African Government
Health technology innovation to improve access and availability of essential medicines in South Africa
Johannesburg, South Africa—July 14, 2016—Management Science for Health (MSH), an international nonprofit dedicated to saving lives by building strong health systems in some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, today presented the government of South Africa with the source code for RxSolution®, an electronic pharmaceutical management system designed to manage medicine supplies from procurement to dispensing.
RxSolution® enables pharmacies to monitor stock requested, ordered, received, and distributed; recommend future orders; track batch/lot and expiry dates; track dispensing information for prescribers, dispensers, and patients; and monitor and control the movement of stock among institutions.
“Proper stock management is essential for providing medicines to patients when and where they need them,” said Bada Pharasi, MSH Country Representative in South Africa and Country Project Director of the USAID-funded SIAPS project. “This is especially important for people living with HIV because treatment is a lifelong commitment and adherence is critical to good health outcomes. This tool has had a positive impact on the daily practices of pharmacy staff, who have expressed satisfaction in their ability to manage their inventories, reduce patient waiting times, and prevent stock-outs, among other benefits.”
RxSolution® was developed in South Africa by South African professionals with funding from the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) and managed by MSH. RxSolution® is now installed in more than 400 facilities across South Africa, including hospitals, community health centres and primary healthcare clinics.
“The next stage in improving medicine availability which we have planned is to use data from SVS in conjunction with upstream electronic stock management systems such as RxSolution®,” said Minister of Health, Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi. “This integration will allow the upstream system to automatically place replenishment orders for clinics in an informed push replenishment, a further modernisation of supply chain practices. The orders placed automatically will be based on monthly stock consumption determinations based on regularly reported medicine availability information uploaded into the SVS. This process will assist particularly nurse-driven clinics to manage stock more efficiently.”