Open mSupply

The mSupply Foundation

Open mSupply

Open mSupply: a digital tool for improving antibiotic stock visibility and availability from the central warehouse to the last mile.

Auckland, New Zealand

NZL

Nonprofit

A lack of visibility of antibiotics through the supply chain in low and middle income countries (LMICs) makes it difficult to ensure patients have access to these life-saving medicines, and impossible for governments to make informed purchasing and policy decisions at the central level. Inefficient tracking of antibiotic stock levels results in stockouts, wastage, under or over-ordering, and inaccurate demand forecasting. Stockouts at the last mile result in a lack of access, which threatens lives, results in wrong substitutions with other antibiotics, and drives patients to private clinics, where antibiotics may be unregulated, expensive, or substandard. The Trinity Challenge highlights that 3 million of the 7.75 million annual bacterial sepsis deaths could be treated with accessible oral antibiotics, yet LMICs face major access gaps, particularly for children under five. With 81 LMICs housing 4.5 billion people, this issue literally affects billions. Current data on Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), largely from high-income hospital settings, overlooks community-level insights in LMICs, where most antibiotics are used. Even with electronic logistics management information systems (eLMIS) in place, data reporting is inconsistent and manual tabulation with no AMR-specific data collection creates knowledge gaps.

Open mSupply is our new open-source eLMIS solution, bringing the proven features of the original mSupply (used in over 40 countries) into a high-performance, web-compatible system with no licensing fees. Open mSupply records stock movements at every level of the supply chain through the creation of shipments, or via monthly reporting (R&R) forms. On top of this core, we’ve built a system that handles everything from quantification & forecasting, procurement, warehousing, and distribution right down to patient dispensing at small health facilities. Obtaining logistics data from the last mile is notoriously difficult. This proposal addresses this challenge by: 1. Making dispensing in Open mSupply extremely simple yet informative, enabling the recording and visualisation of real-time, AMR-specific data at the community level in LMIC 2. Developing new user friendly features, including the Notify System, which predicts antibiotic shortages using consumption patterns and inventory levels, automatically alerting users and decision-makers to prevent stockouts. This empowers health facilities and policymakers with actionable insights to optimise antibiotic access and combat AMR, addressing a critical global health challenge.

Open mSupply builds on 20 years of development of our existing mSupply LMIS, which now serves several hundred million people in over 40 countries,, providing a digital way for health systems and health centres to manage medical supplies, to automate many processes, and to ensure that the right quantities of stock flow through the supply chain efficiently. We want to develop our last mile innovations within Open mSupply and deploy them in health centres in Laos, improving data visibility at these remote sites. Additionally, thanks to its open-source coding and plug-in architecture, these developments would subsequently become available to all countries that wish to use them. Leveraging our strong partnerships in LMICs, we’ve identified multiple countries for initial deployment, prioritising Laos but remaining adaptable to changing contexts. In Laos, Open mSupply will enhance stock management in health centres across provinces, while providing district and central levels with real-time antibiotic consumption and distribution data. This will improve procurement, policy decisions, and antibiotic access, addressing AMR challenges.