There is currently a strong momentum for the strengthening of the local pharmaceutical sector in developing and emerging markets. Regional and national strategies to promote local pharmaceutical production in line with international standards are being developed.

While the rationale for local production is simple - including factors such as independence from donor programmes which may not run forever, more steady supply chains, and greater control to local regulators - there is still a long way to go and markets are tough. Local companies, especially in low and middle income countries, often face substantial hurdles.

One of the big challenges is the lack of a qualified human resources base in the manufacturing sector of medicines and other healthcare products. In particular, there is need for skilled personnel for quality units (quality assurance, quality control) and other GMP relevant areas. Costs for bringing in experts from abroad are high. Combined with other challenges, local manufacturers often struggle to compete and even survive. Not being in line with international quality standards, they are prevented from passing WHO prequalification, participating in international tenders, and entering international markets.

Moreover, the national medicines regulatory agencies (NMRAs) of these countries experience a shortage too of qualified staff in GMP, GMP inspection and dossier evaluation. This creates difficulties for the NMRAs to enforce internationally acceptable regulatory requirements (including GMP standards) thereby preventing the availability of affordable quality generics for the majority of their low income population groups.

This e-learning course introduces Good Manufacturing Practices for medicines. The course focuses on WHO GMP standards and requirements as one of the major GMPs. Course participants will learn about GMP requirements, including procedural, organizational and infrastructural aspects, as well as about the GMP inspection process. They will be able to critically analyse and implement basic GMP requirements in their daily working routine in the manufacturing and regulatory environment. The participants will practice course contents in quizzes, assignments, and discussion forums.

In the end, these capacity building measures in the area of GMP and GMP inspection will make participants from local manufacturers and national regulatory authorities better equipped for production and regulation of quality assured essential medicines in line with national and international standards.

Many of the challenges related to healthcare quality and stock-out situations in low and middle income countries are consequences of poor warehouse management of medicines. Appropriate warehousing of medicines, health products and medical laboratory supplies is an essential component of the supply chain management system, required to maintain the integrity of the health products and prevent stock-out or overstocking at any given time.

This course is designed to introduce you to good warehousing practices for medicines and health products within the health system. We will look at warehouse operations in detail covering the receipt, storage and dispatch of essential medicines. Other topics directly related to warehousing are health and safety, waste management and inventory control. Special focus will also be placed on monitoring and evaluation indicators for warehousing, quality assurance, and rational use.

Ensuring the quality of medicines is a major public health concern. The emergence of substandard and counterfeit medicines, coupled with inefficient supply chain systems, not only poses a risk of negative health outcomes but also leads to economic losses and lack of trust in the health system. To address these issues and develop evidence-based strategies, it is important that people at all levels, from policy makers to primary healthcare workers appreciate and comprehend the need for effective QA systems.

This course will introduce you to the concepts and main principles of quality assurance, and will develop further skills and knowledge in different aspects of quality assurance such as pharmaceutical regulation, pharmacovigilance and quality control of medicines.

You are welcome to a brand-new course on i+ academy!  

Poor inventory decisions can disrupt healthcare services, erode an organisation’s profitability, sustainability and generally wreak havoc on the supply chain. A major fraction of expenditure in many organisation are spent on inventories which if not managed properly may severely impact on quality and service delivery in a resource-constraints environment.

This course focuses on inventory and its associated information systems and technologies. These two components are important as they influence availability of medicines, patients treatment outcomes and ultimately performance ratings of healthcare. Join us as we unravel together the critical role of inventory in healthcare and how to achieve uninterrupted flow of health commodities to patients and end users!

The purpose of this System Use training  is to provide an overview of  knowledge and skills required for Users to operate the Ghana integrated Logistics Information System (GhiLMIS).

Upon successful completion of this module, participants should be able to:

• Understand the Ghana health supply chain and rationale for the integrated logistics information system.
• Explain and systematically implement process steps in the Ghana integrated Logistics Information System (GhiLMIS).

This short introductory course offers basic concepts and exercises on the quantification of medicines and health products.
This is a free and open online course without facilitation.

Change is inevitable. For many organisations change can become a regular occurrence. Accordingly, dealing with change and, more significantly, the impact of change, is a high priority for organisations.

This course is designed to help organisations and their people manage the impact of change, apply theories of  change management and how change affects, and is affected by, individuals, teams, organisations. Irrespective of the scale and scope of the project or organisation change management training enable teams to work effectively to deal with and embrace change.

At the end of the course, participants will be equipped to better understand change through the implementation of change theories, enabling a higher rate of satisfactory change and staff engagement.