Procurement Practices and Performance of Public Hospitals in Kenya: A Case Study of Kenyatta National Hospital.

Abstract

Procurement plays a crucial role in enabling the public sector to achieve its objectives and prepare for uncertainties. However, a significant portion, approximately 60%, of quality systems in public procurement have failed to deliver the anticipated benefits, posing a considerable challenge for government agencies. The main objective of this research was to investigate Procurement Practices and Organizational Performance of Public Hospitals in Kenya, with a focus on Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). Specific objectives include to establish the factors that influence compliance with procurement practices in public hospitals, to examine the level of awareness of legal requirements in the procurement process in public hospitals and to investigate the influence of procurement methods on performance in public hospitals. The study is anchored on the stakeholder theories, System theories and Resource Based theories. The study utilized a descriptive research design that involved 30 procurement officers who form a sub department of the larger supply chain management department at Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). The census sampling technique was employed due to the small study population, to ensure the participation of all eligible respondents. Data was collected using the structured questionnaire, which was pretested for validity through a pilot study. Inferential and descriptive statistics were used in this study in qualitative data analysis obtained from the closed ended questions. Descriptive tools used in qualitative data analysis in the study include measures of central tendency, percentages, frequency distributions, as well as variability measures. The study findings indicated that there was a strong positive relationship between procurement practices, legal awareness, compliance, and performance measures. This indicates that these factors collectively influence hospital performance. However, the lack of statistical significance of the individual predictors suggests that other unmeasured variables may also affect outcomes, warranting a more comprehensive evaluation