Effects Of Inventory Management Practices On Service Delivery (Case In Some Selected Hospitals In South Western Ethiopia).

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.