IIT Madras, Krea University study to help boost medicine supply deliveries in 4 states

NEW DELHI: A study by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Krea University, Chennai, revealed that the medical deliveries of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha, and Punjab can be increased with up to 53 per cent fill rate compared to the average fill rate of 30.95 per cent.

“These states were selected for the research since they were the largest Indian states with the largest populations in the country”, said a statement from IIT Madras.

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In India, essential medicine procurement in the public health system is undertaken by state-level medical service corporations (MSC). “But certain states like Kerala have a centralized system, while states such as Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Odisha have a decentralized system,” it said.

The study conducted by RP Sundarraj, department of management studies, IIT Madras, and Vijaya C Subramanian, department of operations management, Krea University found that several steps can be taken by the state governments to deal with the issue of medicine shortage. It recommended staggering orders, graded manner of applying penalties and blacklisting suppliers, and inter-state coordination.

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“This work is an attempt to bridge the gap between research and policy. The current pandemic has brought into focus the urgent need to address the deficiencies in healthcare delivery. We strongly believe that collaborations such as these between policymakers and researchers can contribute to immense improvements in the current system,” said Subramanian.

“Many factors that affect procurement such as pricing issues, payment conditions, quality control benchmarks, essential drug list composition, and legal requirements can be studied further. The present model may result in instances of under-or over-filling of orders” said the statement.

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“The IITM and Krea University research was published in the journal Social Science and Medicine. The research and modelling were completely based on the data available in the public domain, with advice from policymakers,” it said.