title: Article 1: Supervision, Performance Assessment, and Recognition Strategy (SPARS) - a multipronged intervention strategy for strengthening medicines management in Uganda: method presentation and facility performance at baseline.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Uganda introduced a multipronged intervention, the supervision, performance assessment, and recognition strategy (SPARS), to improve medicines management (MM) in public and not-for-profit health facilities. This paper, the first in a series, describes the SPARS intervention and reports on the MM situation in Uganda before SPARS (baseline).
  
  
  METHODS
  To build MM capacity at health facilities, health workers were trained as MM supervisors to visit health facilities, assess MM performance, and use the findings to provide support and standardize MM practices. Performance is assessed based on 25 MM indicators covering five domains: dispensing quality (7 indicators), prescribing quality (5), stock management (4), storage management (5) and ordering and reporting (4). From the end of 2010 to 2013, MM supervisors assessed baseline MM performance of 1384 government (85 %) and private not-for-profit facilities at all levels of care in about half of Uganda's districts.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall MM baseline median score was 10.3 out of a maximum of 25 with inter-quartile range (IQR) of 8.7-11.7. Facility domain scores (out of a maximum of 5) were as follows: storage management, median score of 2.9 (IQR 2.3-3.4); stock management 2.3 (IQR 2.0-2.8), ordering and reporting 2.2 (IQR 1.3-2.5), and dispensing quality 2.1 (IQR 1.7-2.7). Performance in prescribing quality was 0.9 (IQR 0.4-1.4). Significant regional differences were found: overall scores were highest in the Northern region (10.7; IQR 9.2-12.4) and lowest in the Eastern region (9.6; (IQR 7.8-11.2) (p < 0.001). Overall scores did not differ by facility ownership; however, government facilities scored lower in dispensing and storage and higher in ordering and reporting. Hospitals scored higher overall and in domains other than prescribing and stock management. Districts classified a priori as having high capacity for implementing SPARS had higher scores at baseline compared to lower-capacity districts.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Assessing and building national capacity in MM is needed in both private not-for-profit and government facilities at all levels of care. The indicator-based, multipronged SPARS assessment has been described here, while the strategy's impact has yet to be documented.
authors.affiliation: Management Sciences for Health, Plot 15, Princess Anne Drive, P.O. Box 71419, Bugolobi, Kampala Uganda.
authors.forename: Birna
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Trap
authors.affiliation: Management Sciences for Health, Plot 15, Princess Anne Drive, P.O. Box 71419, Bugolobi, Kampala Uganda.
authors.forename: Denis Okidi
authors.initials: DO
authors.lastname: Ladwar
authors.affiliation: Ministry of Health Uganda Pharmacy Division, Plot 6/Lourdel Rd, P.O. Box 7272 Kampala, Uganda.
authors.forename: Martin Olowo
authors.initials: MO
authors.lastname: Oteba
authors.affiliation: Management Sciences for Health, 4301 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 400, Arlington, VA 22203 USA.
authors.forename: Martha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Embrey
authors.affiliation: Management Sciences for Health, Plot 15, Princess Anne Drive, P.O. Box 71419, Bugolobi, Kampala Uganda.
authors.forename: Mohammed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Khalid
authors.affiliation: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, 133 Brookline Avenue, 6th Floor, Boston, MA 02215 USA.
authors.forename: Anita Katharina
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Wagner
keywords: Medicines management; Medicines management indicators; Performance assessment; Pharmacy indicators; Public sector; Supervision; Uganda