Examining the Practices and Challenges of Information Technology in Health Supply Chain Management in Alsabah Children’s Hospital, Juba, South Sudan

Background: This study was conducted to understand the practices and the challenges associated with information and communication technology in health supply chain management in Al Sabah children's hospital in Juba, South Sudan. The aim was to assess the practices of information technology adoption in the health supply chain management and also to identify the major challenges associated with the adoption of this technology in the Hospital. Methods: An in-depth interview was conducted with the 8 health workers in the different units of Alsabah children's hospital viz. out-patient, pharmacy, EPI, Laboratory, state drug warehouse located within the hospital, and Admin and Finance department. Published articles were searched online to identify the relevant studies and the collected data were analysed narratively. Results: It was observed that no Information and Communication technologies application are used in the hospital for communication between the staff and the patients, monitoring of the patients, and supervision is done in person which is very difficult for the hospital staff to manage with serve shortage of the skilled and qualified staff in the hospital. Lack of internet facility is the main challenge and patient information is recorded in the registers and all the information from different units is submitted to the hospital statistician on a weekly basis for summarization. The hard copies of the report are submitted to the county health department office on a weekly and monthly basis. Conclusion: This study concluded that the management and the staff of the hospital face a lot of difficulties in performing their duties due to the lack of Information Communication Technologies in the hospital. A lot of time is spent attending to the patients, the decision is not made on time, and supervision of the patients is not adequately carried out. If provided new technologies, it will help the Physicians and the Nurses in performing their duties with ease and without wastage of time.