Policy Brief - Logistics and Supply Chain Management Strategy to Support Patient Home Isolation During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Thailand

Recently, the pandemic of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) raised number of patients who needed hospitalization higher than the existing medical resources and personnel. An increase of hospital occupancy rate caused an inadequate availability of COVID-19 beds in sanatoriums, hospitals, or field hospitals. Inaccessible medical care caused patients to delay treatment. Thus, home isolation or self-quarantine was an option for reducing hospital workload for patients with mild symptoms. In addition, Pribta Clinic was established as a center for distributing drug to home isolation patients as fast and accurately as possible. Researchers had an opportunity to join as volunteers in the Pribta Clinic for care of home isolation patients and had seen some gaps in care. The exploration of workflow and gap analysis were planned and executed after the pandemic reduced in magnitude. The research team had conducted a logistics and supply chain management gap analysis of self-quarantine in Thailand in four perspectives that included Information management and information technology management, Material planning and inventory management, Distribution management, and Leadership and governance, reflected on the problems and barriers of home isolation services that required improvement for better administration. The research team would like to present a Strategic Policy Framework. It contains seven elements including supply allocation, supply network nodes, supply network links, inventory policy, IT infrastructure, logistics working group, and cost/budget plan for improving quality and effectiveness of home isolation services and satisfying the patient and medical personnel needs.