Helping Get Unstuck & Strike a Value Chord

A platform to share and reflect on my journey across the worlds of management, innovation, and social impact. Here, you'll find a collection of my management thoughts, highlights from my books, research contributions, and presentations, all rooted in years of academic and practical experience. Whether you're a student, practitioner, policymaker, or fellow thinker, this space is designed to provoke thought, encourage dialogue, and contribute meaningfully to both academic and applied conversations in business and beyond.

Vaccine Management Assessment Tool (VMAT)

Vaccine Management Assessment Tool (VMAT) was developed as a result of the WHO-UNICEF Effective Vaccine Store Management (EVSM) initiative. It is designed to investigate vaccine management knowledge and practices amongst health staff operating at national, sub-national (state level or regional) or intermediate (district) and service delivery (block) levels. It is based on the data and practices of the last six months. The tool helps assessors toidentify and document the areas of strengths and good practices. It also helps to identify major knowledgeand performance gaps in a consistent format. Targeted support and training can be provided to overcome these deficiencies. The objective of VMAT is to identify the following aspects:

– Strengths and good practices
– Major knowledge gaps
– Major performance gaps
– Resource and training needs
– Develop internal capacity of the system to conduct similar self assessment periodically.
– Strengthen future planning & prepare the system for storage space and management of future vaccines like Hepatitis B (Hep B), Measles & Rubela (MR) and 2nd Dose of Measles etc.

VMAT is a spreadsheet-based tool that provides a set of structured questions for the use of national and external assessors. It is designed to be used to carry out a rapid assessment of vaccine-management procedures in a national store, followed by a similar assessment of a sample of subnational stores and service points. Assessment results are displayed in graphical form and should be supplementedby written comments.The tool is based upon eleven global criteria essential for a performing vaccine and cold chain management system. These are listed below:

1. Vaccine arrival procedures
2. Vaccine storage temperatures
3. Cold storage capacity
4. Buildings, cold chain equipment and transport
5. Maintenance of cold chain equipment and transport
6. Stock management
7. Effective vaccine delivery
8. Correct diluents use for freeze dried vaccines
9. Effective VVM use
10. Multi-Dose Vial Policy (MDVP)
11. Vaccine wastage control