Supply Chain Systems Integration and Transition Advisor (Consultant)

This will initially be a 4-month consultancy with a possibility for extension.

Background

Eswatini has made significant progress in building an integrated digital health ecosystem that supports healthcare service delivery, disease surveillance, supply chain management, and health data use for decision-making. The ecosystem is led by the Ministry of Health (MoH) through the Strategic Information Department (SID) and the Health Management Information Systems (HMIS) Unit, with support from development partners, donors, and implementing organizations. The Ministry of Health provides overall stewardship of digital health initiatives and is currently advancing the development of a National Digital Health Strategy and Roadmap to guide investments, standards, interoperability, cybersecurity, and sustainability of digital health systems. The strategy aligns with the WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health and broader national health sector priorities. Core digital health platforms in the Eswatini include:

1.     Client Management Information System (CMIS): This is the Government's national electronic medical record (EMR) platform and supports patient registration, clinical care, laboratory services, pharmacy management, and inpatient care and is operational in most hospitals, health centers, and high-volume clinics nationwide.

2.     Health Management Information System (HMIS): Serves as the national repository for health data collection, reporting, analysis, and performance monitoring and provides routine service delivery, programmatic, and population health information to policymakers and program managers.

3.     CMS Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Used to manage all Warehousing and distribution operations of the Central Medical Stores (CMS) to over 300 health facilities countrywide

4.     Electronic Logistics Management Information System (eLMIS): Currently functional at 106 health facilities and is used to manage all facility level commodity inventory management as well as ordering and reporting to the central medical stores.

5.     Community-Based Health Information System (CBHIS): Digitizes community health services delivered by Rural Health Motivators (RHMs) and enables real-time household-level data collection, referrals, and follow-up using mobile devices, even in offline environments. This is currently integrated with national systems including CMIS and the Health Information Exchange.

Currently health products are coded variedly in all these digital systems hindering data triangulation, interoperability and end to end visibility

The America First Global Health Strategy Project implemented by Management Sciences for Health (AFGHS-MSH), supports the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Eswatini to ensure uninterrupted availability of essential medicines and health supplies across public and private health facilities. Under its mandate, MSH integrates six key components including: Institutionalize National Quantification (Forecasting and Supply Planning) Processes, strengthening end to end supply chain visibility, maintaining commodity availability, development of a supply chain transition road map, Strengthening government supply chain capacities at national, regional and facility support

As part of AFGHS-MSH project end-to-end visibility support component, MSH collaborates with the Ministry of Health to strengthen health product identification and traceability within the national health supply chain. A critical enabler for this integration is the establishment of a National Health Product Registry (NHPR), which provides a standardized nomenclature and governance framework for all health products that will need to be used by all national digital health systems. The MoH and the Medicines regulatory Authority (MRA) intends to initiate this process using the Product Catalogue Management Tool (PCMT), based on Akeneo (open-source Product Information Management tool (PIM) or similar available open-source tool, to manage master product data of all Essential Medicines and Health technologies.

To support the development of a national health supply chain, traceability, and transition roadmap, the National Health Product Registry, and other supply chain information systems, MSH seeks to engage a consultant to provide Supply Chain Systems Integration and Transition Advisory Services to the Ministry of Health in Eswatini.

Principal Duties and Responsibilities:

• Participate in strategic discussions on the development of a national supply chain, traceability and transition roadmap
• Participate in multistakeholder discussions to review and validate the rationale for establishing a National Health Product Registry.
• Participate in the development and operationalization of the NHPR implementation and governance structure that aligns or feeds into with MoH core working groups
• Provide overall technical leadership and manage NHPR conceptualization completion and operationalization in coordination with MoH, Medicines Regulatory Authority (MRA), MSH Eswatini teams, MSH HQ and all key stakeholders.
• Coordinate definition of NHPR technical architecture and interoperability standards.
• Lead multidisciplinary teams in development of standardized nomenclature, mapping and validation of a master health product list in the national supply chain aligned to Global standards (GS1).
• Oversee NHPR development, Quality Assurance, system testing, and User acceptance testing.
• Liaise with MSH technical/program staff and MoH staff as necessary on NHPR development and implementation.
• Provide support to implementation of national health product traceability initiatives involving interoperability of the NHPR to other systems in the national digital health ecosystem including but not limited to CMS/EMSA ERP, eLMIS, CMIS, HMIS and the CBHIS
• Ensure national data governance regulations and WHO standards adherence in the NHPR development
• Lead development of the NHPR SOPs & Governance Package
• Provide regular updates on NHPR development updates to key stakeholders including MoH, MRA, USG and MSH
• Ensure compliance with USG and Eswatini regulatory requirements.

Level of Effort and Location

This position will be based in Eswatini with frequent local travels.

QUALIFICATIONS

Qualifications, skills and experience:

• Bachelor’s in Pharmacy, Medicine, Laboratory, with 5+ year experience in management of information systems.
• Or bachelor’s degree in computer science, information systems, or engineering with 7+ years in health information systems
• 5+ years managing multi-stakeholder technology projects.
• Familiarity with USG funded projects (preferred).
• Strong project management PMP or equivalent certification (preferred).
• Excellent communication skills
• Proven leadership and stakeholder engagement skills.

MSH is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected category under applicable federal, state, and local laws. MSH complies with Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, Section 4212 of the Vietnam Era Readjustment Assistance Act, as amended, and all related applicable regulations.

Know Your Rights - Workplace Discrimination is Illegal (English)

Know Your Rights - Workplace Discrimination is Illegal (Spanish)