Rwanda Medical Supply is currently building technology platforms that will help the agency manage and control stock levels in public hospitals to address issues of shortages of medicines that have been cited in the past.
This move was unveiled during a press conference held on June 12, 2025, aimed at briefing the local media on progress made in addressing issues of medical supplies purchase, delivery, and shortages in facilities – some of which were cited in the auditor general’s reports.
With 26 Regional Warehouses across the country, one in each district, except for Gasabo, Kicukiro, Nyarugenge, and Bugesera which are consolidated under one big hub located in Kigali Special Economic Zone, currently RMS has a portfolio of 536 items on essential medicines (including donor commodities for Malaria, HIV, and TB).
And 400 Specialized medicines and supplies items (cardiology, renal, antibiotics, etc.), 43 Cardiology items, 123 laboratory items, more than 1100 implants, and 400 medical equipment for dialysis.
These are currently distributed through Normal Temperature and Cold Chain Trucks, Enhanced Logistics through partnerships (3PL) with Zipline and Kasha Rwanda, which has seen an increase in product units delivered from 245,419 products (December 2024) to 1,642,672 (in January 2025).
According to RMS officials, they are now transitioning out of E-LMIS due to operational challenges into the new Systems, Applications, and Products in Data Processing/Enterprise resource planning (SAP/ERP) system that allows future integration with the new Electronic Medical Records (EMR) to manage stock, supplies, and sales data.
“Our new system (SAP/ERP system) will allow us to integrate with the EMR system that is run by the Ministry of Health,” said Alliance Stella Ishimwe, the Strategic Advisor to the CEO of RMS.
“We are also working with different development partners to develop new modern storage facilities, to digitalize and integrate AI which will, in the future, help us to manage supplies by having a system that can detect earlier to reduce our challenges in the supply chain,” Ishimwe said.
RMS is currently using electronic metric data and sensors to manage its stockpiles, but with plans to have a single technology-based control and visualization room where all supply activities, quality of medicines (room temperatures), and stock are managed in a centralized point.
RMS Deputy CEO Diana Mutoni said that working with technology-based delivery companies has improved the level of delivering medical supplies to the furthest rural facilities, thus using technology in all its hubs will further RMS’s mandate.
RMS has a mandate to manage the end-to-end health supply chain for Rwanda by quantifying, procuring, storing, and distributing essential and program health commodities (on behalf of donors) to public health facilities.
“Technology makes everything easier in terms of stock count, instead of counting manually and physically in such large warehouses. This makes it easy to identify medicines and quickens the service delivered,” Mutoni said.
She also said that the use of technology will enable RMS to be efficient, fast, and able to save time.
The Auditor General’s report of 2019-2020 showed that RMS’s satisfaction was at 29% of health facilities’ demand, but by December 2024, RMS had reached a satisfaction of 75% of the demand.
Future plans:
In this digital process, RMS plans to use AI for forecasting and market intelligence in its quantification process, but also acquire ISO Certification 90001 to reduce operational errors, enhance productivity, increase credibility, and consumer satisfaction, among others.
Even when three-quarters (74%) of all RMS supply facilities are less than 25 km from their district branch and enabled by the good road and transportation network in Rwanda, RMS revealed plans to centralize their storage facilities to five (5) hubs from the current 26 Regional Warehouses across the country.
The 5 hubs (one per province) will be in Eastern: Kayonza, Northern: Musanze, Kigali: Free Zone Merged hub (Gasabo), Western: Karongi, Southern: Huye. This has already kicked off in Kigali and based on a feasibility study.
“When the medical supplies are in one location, it will make it easy to access the supplies, especially if there is a shortage in one location. It is easy to have a consistent supply when this service is centralized,” Ishimwe noted.
More plans include introducing Community Pharmacy, Maturity and expansion of specialized products (MIS, CVS, Neurology, nephrology, transplant) and Plug into Health Intelligence Hub for supply chain Intelligence, among others.
