“You can’t vaccinate a child with a mobile phone.”Andrea Coleman, co-founder, Riders for Health Technology is all the rage in global health programs, from immunization and child survival to reproductive and maternal health, to malaria, HIV and TB programs. mHealth platforms proliferate, eHealth app...

Recently, I was sitting with the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) Manager, his senior staff, and technical assistance (TA) partners in an African country, discussing support for better visibility and analysis of immunization supply chain data. The EPI Manager was willing to listen, but wasn’...

In the last decade, vaccine information management has slowly evolved from paper at every level in the health system, to Excel-based reports at higher levels (districts or above) that are emailed, to simple stand-alone databases with exported PDF reports, and most recently web forms that capture dat...

“Apps” (computer software applications) are being developed and used as tools to help manage the vaccines and medicines supply chain more and more. But are they directed at challenges that have persisted the longest and would have the greatest impact if resolved? Take, for example, the following two...

A week before (on 28-05-2015) when a couple came with an immunization card developed in a tertiary care centre which created confusion as to what all vaccines thier child should receive made Sampaje team to evolve a user frindly immunization card. This card is evolved considering National Immunizati...

TechNet 2015 Day 3 tackled Managing the System: Human Resources for Supply Chain Management and Data for Management. These two themes are closely linked.People are the sources of data, and people must also have the skills and capacity to use that data for management decisions. In well performing sup...

Background: Complete and timely childhood immunization is one of the most cost-effective interventions in improving child survival in developing countries. Computerized HMIS has been recently introduced to collect aggregated data on service beneficiaries in Himachal Pradesh. HMIS provides coverage e...

Many thanks to Mojtaba Haghgou for sharing this with our readers. The TechNet21 website will soon have a software depot from which you will be able to download VSSM and other latest software. Vaccination Supply Stock Management (VSSM) version 4.7, is a computer application, now used in the centra...

Many country vaccine distribution systems in low to middle income countries feature scheduled deliveries from central to intermediate level stores. But they depend on collection or a mix of collection and delivery at service delivery level of the system. The mode of travel varies as transport becom...

This posting is one of four, each discussing a different indicator. This post discusses vaccine utilisation efficiency. Another efficiency indicator measures the level of vaccine administered expressed as a percentage of the vaccine consumed (Doses ‘Consumed’ = ‘Doses ‘administered’ to clients + ‘D...

This posting is one of four, each discussing a different indicator. This post discusses the availability of vaccine. Over 40% of countries reporting to the JRF in 2013 reported shortages of one or more vaccines for at least one month at central level. Disruption of supplies of this scale at central...

As some of view may know, Unicef WCARO is undertaking an inventory of LMIS uses for EPI. All levels of the supply chain will be assessed and the inventory will cover all kind of tools: systems, softwares, excel spreadsheets, stock cards, forms, etc. Immediate objectives of the landscape are to: I...

This is the first of a series of TechNet postings to assess alternative definitions of field-level indicator(s) matching each of the proposed monitoring objectives. For now and based on this posting, please let me know your feedback: Are any of these objectives NOT needed to monitor distribution?...

Cross-posted from the IAPHL forum with many thanks! Dear IAPHL members, Firstly, thanks to Victoria, Kamran, Gashaw, Wendy, and Prashant for providing their insights.They show the variety of value that GIS provides to logistics, I have categorized them into four different areas; OPERATIONAL/MONI...

Pakistan Vaccine Logistics Management Information System (vLMIS) Release 2 went Live this week: vLMIS release 2 is a single web based integrated platform for reporting Routine Immunization, VSSM, CCEM2 and SDMS software. The portal has below modules with respective dashboards, reports, graphs, an...

Dimagi is pleased to announce that it will support five organizations from various sectors in India and Nepal to explore the use of mobile technology for logistics and supply chain management in low-resource settings. Each organization will be supported to launch a proof of concept of CommTrack, an ...

by Sean Blaschke and Lilian Nabunnya, UNICEF On April 26, 2013, health workers at 3,240 health facilities in Uganda were sent the following short-message service (SMS) text message: Does your Health Unit have a cold chain fridge for vaccines? Please answer YES / NO. If you have a fridge but it is ...

VaxTrak in Vietnam VaxTrak helps health workers keep track of vaccine stock. In 2011, the Vietnamese National Expanded Programme on Immunization introduced VaxTrak in the provinces of Phu Tho, Quang Tri, and Ben Tre. This short video shows how VaxTrak works and examines the impact it has had. [you...

This is a report based on a brief survey on the use of computerized LMIS in public health supply chains conducted on the International Association of Public Health Logisticians (IAPHL) forum. Dear Colleagues, I propose to your attention a brief survey report on the use of computerized LMIS in ...

The Quarter 4, 2012 issue of the USAID | DELIVER PROJECT’s Supply Chain Management (SCM) Newsletter focuses on a number of promising mobile supply chain interventions, which are quickly becoming a preferred approach to data collection, tracking, and reporting. Mobile systems such as ILSGateway in Ta...