Abstract
The district pharmacies use a computerised information system to monitor the flow of products
from the central warehouse to health services delivery points. It helps drug logistics and health
program managers to determine which health facilities are understocked or overstocked among
others. But drug logistics information generated from this system is only in the table format. There
is not spatial information added to it which can help the program managers to determine actual
locations of health facilities and environmental factors affecting them so that they can have enriched
information for their day-to-day work.
The main goal of this study was to identify some opportunities and challenges of applying the GIS
in the drug LMIS at the district level in the Ministry of Health in Malawi. Since the research
involved the introduction of the GIS in the drug LMIS, it was decided to experiment the GIS in the
drug LMIS in order to find out opportunities and challenges. The framed field experiment was used
as the research strategy and interviews, document analysis, prototype evaluation and observation as
data sources whose data analysis was qualitative.
It has been found out that the idea of introducing the GIS in the drug LMIS is very good but it
requires a lot of effort, commitment and resources for successful implementation. Apart from the
GIS being used only by the pharmacy technicians, as the research was focusing on, other drug
logistics and health staff were also interested in the project. The GIS would also help the
statisticians, environmental health officers and drug logistics officers.
Some opportunities and challenges that could exist when introducing the GIS, basically involve
technologies, organisation, standards and data integration. It has been observed that the technical
side of implementing the GIS in the drug LMIS is not difficult because the Ministry of Health has
introduced computer technologies before so some required tools and equipment are available that
can be used in the GIS. The main issue for the successful implementation is organisational in the
sense that if the management of the Central Medical Stores is committed, it is easy to get all
necessary resources and support to do all the activities discussed above. Acquisition of tools and
equipment, user training, data standards, data collection, data integration, data sharing and
cooperation of participants will require support from the management in the Ministry of Health.