Dear Colleagues, 

Digital Square is pleased to invite you to a webinar on Thursday, February 27 at 9AM Eastern U.S. time (see your timezone here: https://tinyurl.com/DSSWebinar ) to discuss the potential role of Decision Support Systems (DSS) in public health supply chains. Please register for the webinar at https://path.zoom.us/meeting/register/upUrdO-tqjsqbA6TGifBEZq6cJWAqrJnQw.

USAID and the Gates Foundation recently worked with Digital Square and Accenture Development Partnerships to examine the role that Decision Support Systems (DSS) can play in strengthening public health supply chain performance and improving access to essential medicines. The Full Report and a brief Executive Summary from this work have recently been published (https://digitalsquare.org/resourcesrepository/dss). You are invited to this webinar to discuss the research, the results, and what it means for public health supply chains.

Many leading organizations managing global or developed country supply chains are leveraging DSS to deal with the inherent complexity of supply chains and manage their risk. This led us to ask: Are there opportunities to use DSS to transform public health in developing countries and improve health outcomes? The research aimed to answer that question by highlighting the opportunities that DSS represent for public health supply chains in developing countries, and understanding the path to their implementation. Specifically, the three objectives of the research were to: 

-> Review the current use of DSS in supply chains to understand successes, challenges for implementation in PHDC supply chains, and key approaches to overcoming these challenges.

-> Define the transformative impact of DSS on public health supply chain outcomes. 

-> Recommend investment-ready and promising applications of DSS in public health supply chains for various maturity levels. 

The results of this research show that there are real opportunities for DSS to strengthen public health supply chains. Some applications of DSS are already being used in developing country environments, particularly in increasing visibility across supply chains. But, there is much more that we can do together! The webinar will discuss the findings of this research, the opportunities that exist, and respond to questions from webinar participants. 

We look forward to your participation in the webinar! 

Best regards,

Digital Square, USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and ADP