Abstract:
The purpose of this research study was to examine the effects of inventory management practices on
Hospital service delivery: the case of some selected Hospital in South west Ethiopia. The research
objectives were to examine the challenges in storage management practices; to study the inventory
quality maintenance management practices and to study access to qualified personnel at the hospital.
The research study was conducted through descriptive research design and mixed research
approaches used. The research study adopted multi-stage sampling techniques through which
respondents from three hospitals were selected. Sample of 256 employees were selected and
respondents from each unit within each Hospitals were selected using proportional stratified sampling
technique. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaires and interviews. Data analysis
involved statistical computations for averages, percentages, and standard deviation analysis. The data
was analyzed based on descriptive and inferential statistics in which SPSS version 20 was used and
multiple linear regression model applied. The research study established that effective storage
management practice, inventory record management, access to qualified personnel and quality
maintenance at storage were statistically significant with P-value <0.05 and access to qualified
personnel has more effect on hospital service delivery relative to other inventory management
practices studied. The study found that hospitals are not effective in practicing the major inventory
management practices such as having access to qualified personnel, using technology supported
information management, storage management which has significant effects on service delivery.
Finally, from the study it can be concluded that the main challenges of the hospital in managing
inventory were: sufficient storage area to store all the needed items, lack of technology support in
inventory management, lack of management support and lack of proper training about inventory
management were the main challenges that almost all facility faced. Based on these findings, the study
recommends that having sufficient storage, having management support and follow up, use of
technologies and training for better management of inventories as these reduced inventory
management problems reduce wastage and improve quality health care delivery.
