The Center for Applied Research and Innovation in Supply Chain – Africa (CARISCA) has recently met with the Private Health Insurers Association- Ghana (PHIA-G). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss challenges relating to supply chain in healthcare as well as possible solutions to these identified challenges.
Speaking on behalf of PHIA-G, Mr. Roland Oppong Adom, Executive Secretary of the Association, noted that the association is a collection of licensed health insurance companies in Ghana. According to him, PHIA-G provides aggregated and reliable payments to providers in the system and guarantees the payments of suppliers through pooling capacities
Mr. Adom further emphasised on the current challenges faced by the association. It was pointed out that there is a fragmented supply chain system leading to less efficacious medications, low availability of efficient generics, uncontrolled medicine tariffs and inconsistency in prices of medications.
However, to curb these challenges, he noted that the association is building a robust and efficient industry-wide formulary, designing chronic medicine programs to control high cost associated with chronic conditions as well as leveraging claims information to better engage group purchasing organisations. The team also addressed specific measures that could be adapted by the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to ensure a better and more effective scheme.
Mr. Adom expressed the interest of his outfit to partner with CARISCA. Partnership between PHIA-G and CARISCA he noted, would aid with deeper understanding of professionals in supply chain field to make healthcare system more effective. He added that his outfit would also be useful in the area of capacity building and training.
The team identified that dealing with these challenges related to the health sector is a valuable exercise that needed to be handled by various organisations. It was further noted that countries across the globe are restrained by certain challenges especially in healthcare leading to inefficiency in the system.
CARISCA, as a center of excellence, focuses on significantly improving the effectiveness and efficiency of supply chain in healthcare, agriculture and other sectors as well. CARISCA would engage in meetings with other stakeholders in the field of healthcare to identify other problems, research into them and later translate them into possible solutions. He further noted that countries across the globe are restrained by certain challenges especially in healthcare leading to inefficiency in the system.