What is the name of your organization?
Inspired Ideas Research Foundation
What is the name of your solution?
Drug Outlet Technology System
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
DOTS: The digital health platform improving antibiotic safety and availability in LMIC communities.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
TZA
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
DOTS solves the dual challenge of inefficient medicine inventory management and the widespread circulation of substandard and falsified (SF) antibiotics within drug dispensaries across Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). Inefficient, often manual, inventory systems lead to frequent stock outs, overstocking, and expiry losses, impacting medicine availability. Concurrently, SF medicines represent a critical threat; 1 in 10 medical products in LMICs are poor-quality (WHO, 2024), with antibiotics most often affected. In Africa, 44.6% of substandard medicines identified were antibiotics (Asrade Mekonnen et al., 2024).
Globally, SF medicines cause thousands of preventable deaths and significantly exacerbate antimicrobial resistance (AMR), estimated to contribute to 5 million deaths annually (Tegegne et al., 2024). Key contributing factors include outdated inventory systems lacking real-time data and the absence of accessible tools for dispensers to verify medicine authenticity or receive critical safety alerts at the point of care (Singh et al., 2021).
What is your solution?
Our solution is the Drug Outlet Technology System (DOTS), a digital public health platform designed for LMIC settings. DOTS uses mobile technology, cloud computing, and predictive analytics to improve antibiotic inventory management and combat substandard/falsified medicines at the point of dispensing.
It offers two main interfaces:
1. Drug Outlet App: An offline-capable mobile/desktop application for dispensers that features digital stock management (inventory tracking, expiry dates, low-stock/expiry alerts) and integrated decision support. This includes patient symptom assessment and checks for potential drug interactions/contraindications to ensure safer dispensing. The app includes tools to verify medicine authenticity and receive instant recall alerts. Predictive analytics help forecast demand to optimize stock levels.
2. Health Authority Dashboard: A web portal provides aggregated, real-time data for national medication usage monitoring (via hotspot maps and trend analysis), an AMR epidemiology proxy for surveillance of resistance patterns, robust counterfeit drug tracking, and tools for issuing rapid recall notifications directly to dispensers via the app.
DOTS digitizes critical drug dispensary workflows, provides real-time data visibility for authorities, and empowers dispensers with tools to ensure medicine quality and availability, even in resource-limited settings. It works by connecting local data input with central analysis and oversight.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
The primary beneficiaries of DOTS are patients in LMICs. Drug dispensers and public health officials managing medicine access are the direct users of the platform.
Patients in LMICs are often underserved due to unreliable access to essential medicines, facing risks from stockouts and the high prevalence of substandard/falsified (SF) antibiotics. This compromises treatment effectiveness and safety. DOTS directly addresses their needs by empowering local drug shops to maintain consistent stock of quality-assured medicines and verify authenticity, reducing patient exposure to harmful SF products and improving the likelihood of positive health outcomes.
Drug dispensers, particularly in Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets (ADDOs), pharmacies, or similar settings, often lack robust tools for inventory management, counterfeit drug identification, and clinical decision support. DOTS empowers dispensers with efficient digital tools for stock control, verification, and safer dispensing guidance.
Health authorities, such as the Tanzania Medicines and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA), lack real-time visibility into medicine usage, AMR trends, and SF circulation. DOTS provides authorities with crucial data dashboards for informed policy, targeted interventions (like recalls), and enhanced public health surveillance, ultimately strengthening the entire health system serving the community.
