January 14, 2026
When a massive earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, Partners In Health faced a surge of medical donations that overwhelmed their paper-based tracking systems. Out of that crisis, OpenBoxes was born — and today it powers PIH’s supply chain across six countries and dozens of facilities.
The Challenge
Before OpenBoxes, PIH staff relied on spreadsheets and paper forms to manage inventory. That worked for small-scale operations, but the 2010 earthquake changed everything. Donations poured in from around the world, and PIH was preparing to open the 300-bed University Hospital in Mirebalais — the largest solar-powered hospital in the developing world. They needed a comprehensive electronic system to manage an increasingly complex supply chain.
The Solution
PIH staff built OpenBoxes to track supplies from initial purchase, through warehouse storage, to delivery inside a hospital, pharmacy, or laboratory. The system was deployed first in Haiti and then expanded to Malawi, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and PIH’s transit locations across the United States.
Today, OpenBoxes gives PIH staff a real-time snapshot of their entire global supply chain. Users can record expiration dates with automatic prioritization, monitor requests and utilization gaps, and generate reports of what comes and goes at every facility.
A New Distribution Center
In 2017, PIH opened a 17,000-square-foot distribution center in Port-au-Prince, replacing a temporary plywood warehouse that had operated since 2012. The new facility includes 14,000 square feet of climate-controlled storage — one-third of which is temperature-controlled for sensitive medications — a mezzanine office space, and a covered loading dock that can accommodate three shipping containers and three trucks simultaneously.
OpenBoxes was deployed at the new facility and customized to record shelf locations, enabling staff to track everything from sterile gloves to surgical equipment in real time.
“Day to night — nothing comparable,” said Villarson Avignon, PIH’s Supply Chain Director in Haiti, describing the improvement. “Today we know exactly where we put our inventory. We can receive two containers and prepare three trucks to make deliveries to sites at the same time.”
Container unloading time dropped from two days to hours. Truck loading times decreased significantly. And supplies reached clinics and hospitals faster than ever before.
The Impact
The results speak for themselves:
- $150,000 saved on insulin alone — savings that were redirected to purchase other lifesaving drugs
- Reduced waste through expiration date tracking and automatic FEFO (first expiry, first out) prioritization
- Fewer stockouts thanks to real-time visibility and stock list features that enable timely replenishment
- Better vendor negotiations using accurate global volume data across all facilities
- Eliminated duplicate orders by allowing staff to check existing inventory across locations before purchasing
“Having more accurate forecasts and fewer stockouts saves lives every day by making sure clinicians have the supplies and medications they need,” said PIH staff.
Open Source, by Design
Consistent with their philosophy of sharing solutions, PIH released OpenBoxes as free, open-source software — just as they had done with OpenMRS, their medical records platform. PIH now consults with other organizations implementing OpenBoxes, and the software has grown into a community-supported project used by healthcare organizations and warehouses around the world.
Photos by Andrew Jones / Build Health International and Cecille Joan Avila / Partners In Health. Sources: Need to Know: OpenBoxes and Supply Chain, New Distribution Center Software Vastly Modernizes Medical Storage in Haiti.