Some

‘improvement mas come with the

Marshall Islands.
supplementary

initiation cf service from Air

This is used and should continue to be used only as a

means

of

distribution

since

it

is

significantly

more

expensive.
Recommendations :

1.

The problem of not reimbursing

suppliers

should be taken care of

through the administrative structure suggested in section IV.

With

these suggested changes it should then become more feasible for the
funds budgeted for supplies to be available for prompt payment of
invoices.
A separate department should be set up independent of the hospitals for
the organization, coordination, and control of the supply function for
hospitals and clinics.

The person in charge should have sufficient

expertise and experience to handle the inventory control and supply
system for a health care system of this size.

The physical location of

this department can remain at the hospital provided adequate storage
space exists.
Development and maintenance of standard inventory lists for each of the
hospitals and outlying clinics.

One list could be developed for use in

most of the clinics since their situations will most likely be very
similar to one another.

Lists such as these would make it very easy

for the community health worker or health assistant to determine which
supplies they are in most need of.
apply to the hospitals.

This same reasoning would also

As new supplies are adopted, additions and

deletions should be made to keep the list up-to-date.
Development of usage patterns related to workload so as to be able to
establish standing orders of some supplies and anticipate needs of all
units.
Biweekly communication between the central supply depot and outlying
centers with regard to needed supplies so that the central supply depot
can make use of all opportunities to keep the outlying units supplied.
For example, a particular clinic may be running low on a particular
medicine due to a local epidemic.

If the central depot is kept aware

of the situation, alternate emergency shipments may be arranged for
through private boats or through Air Marshall Islands.

Select target paragraph3