With the aim to provide “Right Quantity of “Right Product” on “Right Place” on “Right Time” in “Right Condition” at “Right Cost” for “Right People” and also to streamline the distribution of drugs to institutions and ensure availability of drugs at all times, a new, innovative system called online Drug Inventory and Supply Chain Management System (SCMIS) has been introduced in the state of Haryana.

INTRODUCTION An online Drug Inventory and Supply Chain Management System (SCMIS) has been developed to integrate various inter-related activities of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) Haryana. This application is operational since March 2013 and in accordance to the New Drug Policy of Government of Haryana. Prior to the initiative, drugs, surgical and sutures were procured in de-centralized mode. Manual monitoring was conducted to check the flow of drugs, surgical and sutures from purchase to consumption at district and state level. There were literally no tools to monitor and evaluate demand, consumption, inspection budget and other documentary evidences. There was no track of flow between procurement and consumption, leading to shortage/excess of drugs. The system prevalent at that time was fraught with errors and there was no control on critical issues like alerts on expiry medicine, supply of medicine by vendors, whether drugs have reached the reordering level etc. The system leads to lots of time wastage and requires continuous monitoring to ensure that each transaction is accounted for and makes inventory record keeping a more cumbersome process for the operator. Not more than one person was able to access data at the same time unless they keep multiple copies of reports and the resultant paper work takes lot of space and often searching the relevant information becomes a tedious exercise.

OBJECTIVES OF THE SYSTEM a) To improve efficiency and effectiveness of procurement and distribution systems through robust quality controls b) To provide dashboard based online monitoring of all activities at each level c) Tracking of vendor activities like preparation of Supply Order, Shipment etc d) Monitoring of Drug consumption pattern

FEATURES OF SCIMS SOFTWARE Modular approach was adopted for the development of SCIMS software application. NIC team has designed and developed the web based solution according to the new Drug Policy of Government of Haryana. The new software comes with the following features:

  • Accounts for stakeholders on portal
  • Workflow based access to different modules
  • Dashboard for all concern to monitor and evaluate purpose
  • Stores, maintains, updates, searches & displays information related to drugs
  • Ability to define the items into groups, sub groups, categories, codification of drugs
  • Provision to maintain expiry date/shelf life for an item wherever applicable
  • Email Alerts with different colours for the drugs near expiry well before its expiry date
  • Indent generation
  • Ability to define and maintain various levels of stores that will not only allow maintenance but also keeps transaction history
  • Ability to maintain control on stocks (such as quantity tracking) and their replenishment
  • Ability to reserve items within the district ware house
  • Ability to search items using a number of search criteria like identification id, item specification, equivalent / related item etc
  • There is provision to link all drug warehouses hierarchically to understand their physical as well as functional structure.
  • Transfer of drugs among Institutions, provision of record transactions while moving items from one location to another

SCMIS plays an important role in monitoring various Govt. sponsored National Programmes such as Anti-Malaria, School Health, Epidemic Anti Rabies, Medical Camps etc. It provides indenting and issuing features to the pharmacists located all over the state. It also provides interface to the suppliers, Testing labs and Medical Colleges.

SALIENT FEATURES OF SCMIS SYSTEM

  • Efforts to make minimal data entry by providing selections, Pop-up windows, choice boxes wherever possible.
  • User log details and user status details are also captured in database.
  • Android based dashboards have been provided in the system to facilitate Higher Authorities in the process of decision making. The same facility helps the warehouse managers in monitoring of Performance Indicators.
  • Drug Management from procurement to distribution has improved due to online monitoring of each activity through the system.
  • Alerts are generated with different colours for drugs to be expired and the same is also sent through email.
  • Non Availability Certificate is generated before any local purchase of medicines and consumables with an objective of better utilization of local funds available with the institutes and civil surgeons. This prevents undue wastage of drugs.
  • The system carries out intra-institute, intra-warehouse and intra-district drug transfers to ensure optimum utilization of drugs.
  • The system comes with the ability to suggest which vendor should be preferred and which should be rejected on the basis of non compliance to the quality standards of the drugs.

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS (KPIS)

  • Age of Inventory at various levels
  • Drug Fill Rate
  • Inventory turnover
  • Supply Tracking
  • Monitoring of medicine expiry and re-distribution
  • Budget and payment monitoring

FUTURE EXPANSION/PLANNING

  • Plans are in place to integrate the system with the e-payment system for the procurement of medical equipments.
  • It is also planned to enable auto-generation of Purchase orders on the basis of consumption pattern for the procurement of items (other than drugs) on the same Procurement Cycle.

For further information: GHAN SHYAM BANSAL State Informatics Officer, NIC-Haryana State Centre G03, Haryana New Secretariat, Sector-17, Chandigarh – 160017 Ph: +91172-2711642 E-Mail: sio-hry@nic.in