[SELV/SIIL] Forecasting & Estimation: Estimating Vaccine Needs
Target release | Vaccine Module |
|---|---|
Epic | Forecasting and Estimation |
Document status | DRAFT |
Document owner | Vidya Sampath |
Technical Lead |
Goals/Scope
This functionality seeks to provide users of the system a way to estimate vaccine product need across a series of variables. Successful acceptance of this functionality would involve the following:
Estimation of product is done considering at least the following factors in its calculation (target population for that particular vaccine, buffer stock level, wastage rate level, number of doses in the vaccination schedule) and potentially historical consumption, CCE functioning status, CCE capacity
Background
Effective vaccine management requires accurate vaccine forecasting and needs estimation, as well as adequate stock ordering that follows the delivery schedule, in conformity with cold chain capacity. This page focuses on the former and adequte stock ordering is captured under the "delivery/supply requirements" pages.
Forecasting/Needs estimation can be calculated using:
Target population provided by MoH, usually based on census projections
Buffer stock and acceptable wastage rate policy set by MoH/EPI Program
Can different countries have different wastage amounts? If so, to what level (do disticts people have different ones from national?)
Previous consumption (more likely to be considered at national level but ideally should be reviewed by lower levels as well as part of data analysis/performance improvement cycles);
Are there preset formulas for this? What level of flexibility is needed?
Available CCE capacity and functionality status
Time period (40 days, two weeks, 1 month, quarter, year, multi-year, etc)
Assumptions
Users will primarily access this information in close conjecture with the features in the "delivery/re-supply domain"
In push based SCs, users will reference this information when estimating how to package deliveries to an area and load the cold box/distribution truck
In pull based SCs, users will reference this information when estimating how much to request for their next order
In both scenarios, it is likely that while users will "View" this information online, they would also take a print out of the page to show in meetings, with supervisors etc so that needs to be considered
User Stories
# | Title | User Story | Label | Importance | Notes |
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1 | Calculate Needs Estimates for Facilities in the system | As a district EPI supervisor and/or as an Intermediate Vaccine Store Manager, I want to calculate the needs estimates for all the health facilities under my responsibility by using a series of variables (See list under "background" above) so that I can ensure the stock in my district depot is enough to meet their needs via next scheduled re-supply and so I know when to place a requisition order from the level above for additional stock. | SELV does part of this | Must Have |
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2 | Calculate Needs Estimates for Storage Points in the system (outside of HCs) | As an intermediate vaccine store manager, I want to calculate needs estimates for all the storage points dependent on me (district depots, zonal depots, etc) using the variables listed under "Background" so that I can ensure the stock in my warehouse is enough to meet their needs via next scheduled re-supply and so I know when to place a requisition order from the level above for additional stock. | SELV does part of this | Must Have |
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3 | Dynamic calculation of needs estimates | As a district EPI supervisor or Intermediate Vaccine Store Manager, I want to have a dynamic way of calculating needs estimates where I can turn on or off the variables listed above to see which ones have a better accuracy for predicting correct estimates so that I can inform MoH policy and guidelines | SELV does not do this | Big debate |
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Diagrams
Determine the need:
Preset formula from WHO
Catchment size for facility (concern around this because census is old so their is concern)
Wastage rate for that vaccine (set by WHO)
How often a child should be vaccinated
Safety stock that needs to be there
Dependencies
Description | Link |
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Open Questions
Below is a list of questions to be addressed as a result of this requirements document:
Question | Outcome | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | From Tech/Brandon: How much is OpenLMIS intended to be the "planning tool" that people use to plan these amounts? If the planning process and the formulas and policies are highly variable by country and program/funder, then maybe it's better if the planning happens outside OpenLMIS, and OpenLMIS simply gets informed about the target amounts/ideal stock amounts. | Open | |
| 2 | Can we take the code from OpenLMIS 1 & 2 and bring that into v3? |
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| 3 | Are lead times a thing? Estimating that you'll be out of stock in X days and that it will take Y days to receive new shipment. |
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Out of Scope
Comments
There is also a role for taking ideal amount and comparing it to CCE capacity and determine what can actually be taken in by that facility. Would be looked at each replenishment cycle.
Re fuller features of ISA calculations: "OpenLMIS is not your experimental body to experiment with. Excel is cheaper for that."
Re Open Question above: BBJ: how does OpenLMIS actually help with this? Should we be able to build population estimates within the system? Or is there a different way to assume that people will do some of this planning outside the software?
Josh: If we were to make it similar, all of the ISA and catchment pop calc (like in v1) would be moved outside of Openlmis and we would need to be able to take in for the program, for the facility, and also aggregate up what the ISA number is in doses. In v1 we built a way to specify the capture. If wer were to take out of Openlmis, what we'd take out is the final dosage amt per facility. OpenLMIS would have to do something like take in a CSV that says "this many doses per month"
MJ: we don't have stories yet for how to define capture areas, how to define formula, etc. That would demonstrate how big it is. For us to have dialogue with stakeholders about that being a big piece of software, we need to be able to show it. We need to define those assumptions so we can understand scope.
Vidya: Background on current state: moh EPI head has a preset formula they use that is provided by the WHO. that takes into account what the catchment size of that facil is, what the acceptable wasteage rate of that vacc is, how often a child needs to be vacc with that vacc, safety stock needed → all plugged into formula to calculate need for facility for particular time period. (Period is predetermined as month, year, etc.) BUT there's criticism based on the fact that the first data point is based on census from ages ago and just increased by 1 or 2% each year. There's a growing body w/in ISC world saying we need to stop using census numbers. Why not instead base numbers on previous consumption (data from last quarter or data from this time last year, two years ago) ? If I want to calculate need, i don't want it to be a static formula-- i need to be able to toggle things on and off based on what I want to do.