ArticleJournal of pharmaceutical policy and practice2021
Article 4: Impact assessment of supervision performance assessment and recognition strategy (SPARS) to improve supply chain management in health facilities in Uganda: a national pre and post study.
Article in Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 11 citations in OpenAlex.
- The evolution of supportive supervision in low- and middle-income countries.BMC global and public health · 2026Review
- The Quality Management Improvement Approach: Successes and Lessons Learned From a Workforce Development Intervention in Rwanda's Health Supply Chain.Global health, science and practice · 2023Article
- Identifying and addressing challenges to antimicrobial use surveillance in the human health sector in low- and middle-income countries: experiences and lessons learned from Tanzania and Uganda.Antimicrobial resistance and infection control · 2023Article
- Evaluation of Rational Drug Use Based on WHO/INRUD Core Drug Use Indicators in a Secondary Care Hospital: A Cross-Sectional Study in Western Uganda.Drug, healthcare and patient safety · 2023Article
- Health supply chain system in Uganda: current issues, structure, performance, and implications for systems strengthening.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2022Review
- An Evaluation of Antibiotic Prescription Rationality at Lower Primary Healthcare Facilities in Three Districts of South-Western Uganda.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTo strengthen medicines management capacity, including supply chain management, at public sector health facilities in Uganda, the Ministry of Health introduced a multipronged supervision, performance assessment, and recognition strategy (SPARS). The aim of this study was to assess the impact of SPARS on improving supply chain management. A series of four papers on SPARS described the SPARS concept, its impact on overall and domain practices and appropriate medicines use, and now in the fourth paper describing the effect on supply chain management.
methodsDistrict-based health workers trained as supervisors build facility-level capacity in medicines management using an indicator-based performance assessment followed by targeted supervisory visits. From 2010 to 2013, 1222 SPARS visits were implemented, and the SPARS performance indicator scores determined. This article assesses impact on 13 indicators in three of the five SPARS domains-stock management, storage management, and ordering and reporting quality-using a pre-post design. We also explored factors that may have influenced these outcomes.
resultsBetween the first and last visit within one year of SPARS implementation, we found an average improvement of 16 percentage points (p < 0.001) in supply chain management measures across all levels of care. The improvement in scores for stock management, storage management, and ordering and reporting was 22 (ns), 16 (p < 0.001), and 11 (p = 0.032) percentage points, respectively. The study identified the key predictors of positive change as a low initial indicator score, frequent supervisory visits, and engagement of the district health officer.
conclusionsThe multipronged SPARS approach was effective in building supply chain management capacity in lower-level health care facilities with statistically significant improvements in supply chain management overall and in almost all stock and storage- management and ordering and reporting measures after one year of implementation. We recommend broad dissemination of the SPARS approach as an effective strategy to strengthen supply chain management in low-income countries.
trial registrationThe study did not involve or use human participants or identifiable personal data, human tissue, or animals and thus did not require ethical approval or a waiver. It is a study implemented in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and does not require trial registration.
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