- KEMSA said it had invested more than KSh 30 million to facilitate efficient service provision from the Kisumu regional supply chain centre
- KEMSA is executing a three-pronged transformation strategy (KEMSA2.0) geared at enhancing its customers’ experience
- The county has accessed health supplies from KEMSA worth more than KSh 122million in the last financial year, comprising TB drugs, Antiretroviral therapies, HIV test kits and antimalarials
The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) said it had invested more than KSh 30 million to facilitate efficient service provision from the Kisumu regional supply chain centre.
On August 19, 2022, the CEO of KEMSA Terry Ramadhani said the Authority is executing a three-pronged transformation strategy (KEMSA2.0) geared at enhancing its customers’ experience by providing quality, assured, efficient supply chain solutions for health commodities. She spoke when she hosted Homa Bay County Governor-Elect Gladys Wanga in her office.
What is KEMSA’s strategy?
As part of the KEMSA 2.0 strategy, Ramadhani pledged to provide full support to Homa Bay County, among other counties seeking to roll out tailor-made health delivery programmes.
The county, she said, had accessed health supplies from KEMSA worth more than KSh 122million in the last financial year, comprising TB drugs, Antiretroviral therapies, HIV test kits, antimalarials, and family planning commodities.
She said that to better serve the Lake Basin Economic Bloc, KEMSA has streamlined operations at the Kisumu Regional Supply Chain Centre, which mirrors the national supply chain centre at Embakasi, Nairobi.
The centre facilities and systems, she said, had been improved to provide services to Kisumu, Homa Bay, Kisii, Migori, and Busia Counties, among others.
“To serve the Nyanza region counties efficiently, KEMSA has recently managed to align its business processes and significantly automate them through the Authority’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Logistics Management Information System (LMIS) and the KEMSA e-mobile service that facilitates on-time stocks’ fulfilment to public health facilities,” the CEO of KEMSA said.
“For counties such as Homa Bay, among others, we have successfully integrated our systems to ensure a seamless and efficient order management process that will enable swifter turnaround times.”
On her part, Governor-Elect Gladys Wanga pledged to transform the county’s health facilities through a collaborative model encompassing public and private sector players.
She said the Homa Bay County Health transformation programme will focus on cutting disease prevalence with a specific focus on maternal and child interventions.
The Health Transformation plan was one of the critical pillars in Governor-Elect Wanga’s manifesto. It will be incorporated in the third Homa Bay County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) and the third health sector strategic and investment plan (HSSIP) to guide health sector priorities implementation.
To ensure the programme’s success, Wanga disclosed that her county would strive to ring-fence health revenues and budget allocations to guarantee settlement of Pharmaceutical bills, health workers’ salaries and other operating expenses.
“Health finances and revenue in Homa Bay will be used for health operating expenses, and we shall also partner with public bodies such as KEMSA and private sector players to provide quality services,” Wanga said.
She explained that the Homa Bay County Health transformation programme would incorporate the deployment of community health workers to deliver primary health management, surveillance and outreach solutions for Malaria, HIV, Non-communicable diseases and Nutrition to reduce the current disease burden.
The programme, she added, will also focus on mainstreaming health facilities and providing productivity-based reward schemes for health workers in the country.
“I have a dream to transform Homa Bay county health facilities by reducing the disease burden by ensuring that we have a working health system with well-equipped and stocked pharmaceutical commodities,” Wanga said.
Homa Bay County has 262 health facilities, one teaching and referral hospital, and two medical training institutes (Homa Bay and Rachuonyo KMTCs).
In a related story, KEMSA recently unveiled a 180-day rapid results operating strategy dubbed KEMSA 2.0 to guide the second phase of its organisational transformation journey.
The strategy will focus on building momentum for organisational productivity; to guarantee efficient last mile delivery of health commodities countrywide.
The launch of the KEMSA 2.0 strategy comes hot on the heels of the recent adoption of a new organisational structure to ensure compliance with oversight requirements.
As part of the organisational structure -with eight operating directorates and a staff establishment ceiling of 378- adoption, KEMSA commenced a competitive recruitment process on Monday to fill leadership positions in the new structure.
Kenya: KEMSA launches new operating strategy as part of ongoing organizational transformation
