Reducing stock-outs of life saving malaria commodities using mobile phone text-messaging: SMS for life study in Kenya

Journal article

Background Health facility stock-outs of life saving malaria medicines are common across Africa. Innovative ways of addressing this problem are urgently required. We evaluated whether SMS based reporting of stocks of artemether-lumefantrine (AL) and rapid diagnostic tests (RDT) can result in reduction of stock-outs at peripheral facilities in Kenya. Methods/Findings All 87 public health facilities in five Kenyan districts were included in a 26 week project. Weekly facility stock counts of four AL packs and RDTs were sent via structured incentivized SMS communication process from health workers’ personal mobile phones to a web-based system accessed by district managers. The mean health facility response rate was 97% with a mean formatting error rate of 3%. Accuracy of stock count reports was 79% while accuracy of stock-out reports was 93%. District managers accessed the system 1,037 times at an average of eight times per week. The system was accessed in 82% of the study weeks. Comparing weeks 1 and 26, stock-out of one or more AL packs declined by 38 percentage-points. Total AL stock-out declined by 5 percentage-points and was eliminated by the end of the project. Stock-out declines of individual AL packs ranged from 14 to 32 percentage-points while decline in RDT stock-outs was 24 percentage-points. District managers responded to 44% of AL and 73% of RDT stock-out signals by redistributing commodities between facilities. In comparison with national trends, stock-out declines in study areas were greater, sharper and more sustained. Conclusions Use of simple SMS technology ensured high reporting rates of reasonably accurate, real-time facility stock data that were used by district managers to undertake corrective actions to reduce stock-outs. Future work on stock monitoring via SMS should focus on assessing response rates without use of incentives and demonstrating effectiveness of such interventions on a larger scale.

Authors: Githinji, S; Kigen, S; Memusi, D; Nyandigisi, A; Mbithi, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• Journal: PLoS ONE
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 1
• Pages: ARTN e54066
• Publication date: 2013-01-17
• Acceptance date: 2012-12-10
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054066
• EISSN: 1932-6203
• ISSN: 1932-6203
• Language: English
• Keywords: SBTMR