Health & Medical Education Department of Jammu & Kashmir shifted from traditional procedures of demand generation to online demand generation for hospital supplies, after E-Aushadhi (DVDMS) - Drug, Vaccine Distribution and Management System was successfully implemented by Jammu and Kashmir Medical Supplies Corporation Ltd. (JKMSCL). E-Aushadhi software has been  developed and implemented by CDAC, Ministry of IT and Commerce, and it helped in scientific demand generation, procurement and distribution of medicines and other hospital supplies in the health care institutions of J&K state.

 

Prior to online demand generation through e-Aushadhi, the Department of Health and Medical Education J&K was relying on the information provided by end users, without knowing their budgetary provisions and the nature of the medicines and other hospital supplies, which could be procured on their demand. The entire exercise was very tedious and time consuming, as it required lot of paper work. The officer in charge of the health care institution like Block Medical Officers, Medical Superintendents and the Chief Medical Officers etc. were most of the time adding 10% every year to the previous year’s projected demand of medicines and other hospital supplies and submitting the same to the next higher authorities.

 

The exercise was not based on the scientific system of inventory management and the first step of material management i.e. realistic demand estimation, which forms basis for all future activities was faulty, which on one hand resulted in shortage of vital and essential items in the hospitals and on the other hand resulted in over stocking of the items, which were not required in a particular institution.

 

In the first year, another big challenge before JKMSCL was to get the distribution plans of the hospital supplies, which were procured on the demand of Directorate of Health Services Jammu/ Kashmir. It took more than 3 Months to get the distribution plans, so that the hospital supplies could be issued to the institutions for its use.

 

It was therefore planned to utilise software for online demand generation, so that the supplies after their procurement were provided to intending departments, strictly as per their requisitions.

An extensive exercise of training on demand generation, compilation and finally placement of the purchase orders was carried out by JKMSCL, which resulted in placement of more than 3000 purchase orders amounting to Rs. 87.00 Crore and then the distribution of these supplies as per the demand of the end users.