Assessment of supply chain management of laboratory equipment, reagents, supplies and its potential impacts the quality of laboratory diagnostic services of public hospitals in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia.
Creators: name: Asrat, Biadglign
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2019

description: Background: Supply chain management process allows the right laboratory commodities in the right quantities in the right condition delivered to the right place at the right time for the right cost. Poor management of laboratory equipment, reagents and other suppliers with recurrent stock-outs of reagents, frequent equipment breakdown was a major gap in ensuring quality and uninterrupted testing leading to patient dissatisfaction, and it needs more attention to strength and improve supply chain management practices. Objective: This study aimed to assess supply chain management of laboratory equipment, reagents, supplies and its impact on the quality of laboratory services of public hospitals in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Methods: The study employed a quantitative design using a hypothesis testing approach to identify the effect of supply chain management of laboratory equipment, supplies, reagents, consumables on quality of laboratory services. 169 questioners were distributed to employees working in laboratory divided on thirteen (13) public hospitals found in Addis Ababa, from February 2019 to May 2019 using questioner and observational checklist. After data was entered to SPSS 23, frequency, percentage was computed, presented using tables and graphs, and Binary logistic regression was analyzed to see the effect of the independent variables with dependent variables by using Odds Ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval with p-value of less than 0.05. Result: The 61.5% (n=8/13)of public health facilities had policy criteria for selection and procurement of laboratory commodities, 51.3% (n=7/13) of the laboratory stores met the standard storage criteria's which were the good features of supply chain management practices, while in 77% (n=10/13) of public hospitals laboratory staffs had no access to training particularly related to supply chain management, during the last six months and visit time 69.2% (n=9/12) public hospitals encountered stock out reagents and controls of coagulation, hormonal, chemistry tests, 69.2% (n=9/13) encountered suppliers misbehave during procurement, 61.5% (n=8/12) public hospital laboratory had no work planned budgetary projections and in the 61.5% (n=8/12) public hospitals the laboratory professionals were not involved in the procurement process. 73.5% (n=117/159) of participants indicated that the overall extent of supply chain management of public hospital laboratories were not adequately practiced. 70.4 %( n=112/159), 73.6% (n=117/159), 69.2% (n=110/159), 74.8% (n=119/159), 79.9% (n=127/159) of participants indicated there was no adequate practice of logistics management, supplier relation management, ix customer relationship management, information sharing, and order fulfillment respectively. In case of quality service provision in 84.6% (n=11/13) of public hospitals there was lack of vaccine against Hepatitis B and 84.6% (n=11/13) of public hospital laboratories did not monitor quality control for each tests on daily bases. Findings also revealed that 56% (n=89/159) of laboratory professionals indicated that their laboratory did not provide timely services as per to preset turnaround times, 57.9 % (n=92/159) of laboratory professionals indicated that their laboratory did not provide reliable services, 63.3 % (n=101/159) of laboratory professionals indicated that laboratory service provision was not as per to safety requirements. Logistic regression showed the difference in supply chain management and quality due to educational level, degree (AOR=0.25(0.07-0.84)), masters (AOR=0.19(0.04-0.86)). Practicing logistics management (AOR=3.32, 95% CI= (1.4-8.0) and order fulfillment (AOR=3.56, 95 % CI=(1.329.56) were found 3.32 and 3.56 times more likely to provide the quality laboratory service than those which did not practice it respectively. Conclusion: Based on the study findings we can conclude that, the supply chain management practices and provision of quality laboratory at public hospitals needs improvement to meet the standard. Recruiting employee with higher education, practicing logistics management and order fulfillment led to success in the provision of quality laboratory services. From observation, our finding showed lack of training related to supply chain management, non-involvements of laboratory professionals in purchasing, stock out of reagents and controls, supplier's misbehaving and absence of HB vaccine were major gaps in provision of quality of laboratory services.