OECS health officials to discuss electronic procurement system for pharmaceuticals

CASTRIES, St Lucia — The OECS Secretariat will conduct a workshop in St Lucia from April 22 to 26 to perform the full testing of the operations of an electronic procurement system for the OECS Pharmaceutical Procurement Service (EPPSS).The system will assist the OECS Secretariat’s Pharmaceutical Procurement Service in executing its pooled procurement mandate.

The EPPSS includes the following major modules: centralized registration; user-specific administrative dashboards; e-tendering (demand aggregation to signing of contract); basic contract management; system and security administration, and online help.

The firm European Dynamics SA (EDSA) from Athens, Greece, was contracted to design, develop and install the electronic procurement system for the OECS Pharmaceutical Procurement Service and to provide relevant training and support.

The OECS Secretariat launched the EPPSS project in November 2012.

Karlene Francis, the director of the OECS Secretariat’s Electronic Government for Regional Integration project, which is coordinating this activity, said over the past few months the OECS Secretariat and the participating countries have been working with EDSA to define the business rules for the EPPSS.

EDSA has now completed the development of the system and a workshop will be conducted in Saint Lucia to perform full testing of the operations of the electronic procurement system for the OECS Pharmaceutical Procurement Service EPPSS. The objectives of this mission are:

• Complete all test scenarios against the testing and acceptance plan;
• Conduct an initial training session on the new system; and
• Obtain an initial feedback from the participants.

Central medical stores and procurement representatives from Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines will participate in the workshop. In addition, representatives of the OECS Pharmaceutical Procurement Services and the OECS Regional E-Government Unit (EGRIP) will also attend.

The overall development objective of EGRIP is to promote the efficiency, quality, and transparency of public services in the beneficiary countries, through the delivery of regionally integrated e-government applications that take advantage of economies of scale.