Influence of data quality and human resurce factors on the performance of pharmaceutical supply chain of public health facilities. A case of Tabora Region

Abstract

Background: Performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain is a cornerstone to achieving universal access to Essential Medicines and Health Supplies (EMHS), however it is influenced by several factors such as Data quality and Human Resource factors. Several indicators have been developed to measure performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, making possible to identify areas of improvement for continuous transformation. Objective: This study aimed at assessing the influence of data quality and human resource factors on the performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain in Tabora Region, Tanzania. Methods: Quantitative research approach was employed in a cross sectional descriptive study. A sample of 58 health facilities was selected using stratified sampling technique. The performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain was assessed using Key Performance Indicators. Data quality was calculated using National Data Quality Assessment Tool and Human resource factors were calculated using likert scale measuring awareness, knowledge, attitude and practice of Pharmaceutical Supply Chain actors. Cross tabulation was performed to determine factors that had relationship with performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain at bivariate level, and a cut of point of p value 0.2 was used to take variables from bivariate to multivariate analysis. Multiple Logistic regression analysis was performed to compare strength of association between dependent variables and independent variables. At multivariate level p values considered significant was < or =0.05. Results: The public health facilities pharmaceutical supply chain performance with regard to all indicators was found to be Highly Performing at 82.5% score. Knowledge, a HR factor had significant influence on the Performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain at multivariate level with Beta coefficients showing significant value of 0.006. Data quality parameters had insignificant influence on the performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain with p values of 0.959 and 0.074 for System assessment and Guideline availability respectively. Conclusion: It was therefore concluded that Knowledge, a Human Resource factor do have significant influence on the performance of the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain. Therefore managers supervising the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain should pay particular attention in improving knowledge of Health Staff handling Pharmaceutical Supply Chain activities through training and/or employing appropriate cadres in order to ensure highest performance of the PSC.