CONTRACT MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AND SUPPLY CHAIN PERFORMANCE OF COUNTY REFERRAL HOSPITALS IN KENYA

Procurement& Logistics

The study seeks to establish the relationship between contract management practices and supply chain performance of county referral hospitals in Kenya. The objectives included to determine the influence of contract management practices, documentation, compliance, monitoring, and cost management on supply chain performance. The study is anchored on contract compliance theory, agency theory and transactional cost economies theory. The study employed a descriptive research design and mainly concentrated on the 47 county referral hospitals in Kenya. The respondents were chosen based on the sample frame. The heads of department in each of these departments: procurement, finance, and stores were employed as a unit of observation across the referral hospitals. The primary data were collected through a questionnaire. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 28) was used to analyze the data. The Cronbach’s Alpha value was greater than 0.7 which indicated that the questionnaire met the minimum acceptable threshold. The study findings showed that contract management practices namely contract documentation, contract compliance, contract monitoring and contract cost management significantly influence the supply chain performance of county referral hospitals in Kenya. The study concluded that performance was predicted to improve for every unit increase in these practices. The study further recommends that county referral hospitals should implement electronic document management systems for contract documentation, streamlining processes, and improving overall efficiency. Some recommendations included choosing the right software, systems configuration, document importation, user training, and need identification. This will ensure less contractual errors and improve contract management practices.

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