Quantifying needs for HIV/AIDS-related medicines and other commodities is particularly challenging in rapidly expanding prevention and treatment programs that lack data history to drive conventional estimates. Management Sciences for Health’s Rational Pharmaceutical Management (RPM) Plus Program has developed pharmaceutical quantification tools to meet quantification needs in this context.
In addition to Quantimed [PDF - 33 KB], a computer-based pharmaceutical quantification and cost estimation tool; RPM now provides Improving Quantification of ARVs Training Course, where participants learn the basics of how to quantify essential medicines including antiretrovirals (ARVs).
Improving Quantification of ARVs Training is a four-day course that-
- Teaches the basic concepts of antiretroviral therapy (ART)
- Shows how to collect and organize data
- Demonstrates developing assumptions and quantifying needs
Participants learn how to quantify essential medicines and ARVs using manual methods before learning to use Quantimed.
This course will enable participants to-
- Share common experiences, challenges, and approaches for quantifying commodity needs for ART programs
- Build the capacity of national- and program-level staff in pharmaceutical quantification and procurement to carry out the quantification process for an ART program
- Develop an understanding of how Quantimed is used
The training materials contain the following 11 sessions-
- Introduction to Quantification
- Basic Concepts of Antiretroviral Therapy for Quantification
- Quantification Methods and Exercises: Consumption and Morbidity
- Introduction to Quantimed Tool and Hands-on with Quantimed: Consumption and Morbidity Exercises
- The Antiretroviral Medicines Market and Quantification
- Issues in Quantifying Needs of ARV and Opportunistic Infection Medicines
- Quantifying ARV Needs for Children
- Data Collection for ARV Quantification
- Assumptions and Decision Making: The Art of Quantification
- Process and Approach to ARV Quantification
- Hands-on with Quantimed: ART Scaling-up Exercise
During the training, participants use their own program-specific data in the Hands-on Quantimed: ART Scaling-up Exercise session.
Training participants have included pharmacists working in national-level programs in Haiti, Guyana, the Eastern Caribbean, Rwanda, and Zambia. RPM Plus field staff in Namibia, Kenya, and Ethiopia and staff from the new Supply Chain Management System (SCMS) project have been trained with these materials as well.
