Search results

As supply chain excellence matters, designing an appropriate health-care supply chain is a great consideration to the health-care providers worldwide. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to benchmark several potential health-care supply chains to design an efficient and effective one in the presence of mixed data.

To achieve this objective, this research illustrates a hybrid algorithm based on data envelopment analysis (DEA) and goal programming (GP) for designing real-world health-care supply chains with mixed data. A DEA model along with a data aggregation is suggested to evaluate the performance of several potential configurations of the health-care supply chains. As part of the proposed approach, a GP model is conducted for dimensioning the supply chains under assessment by finding the level of the original variables (inputs and outputs) that characterize these supply chains.

This paper presents an algorithm for modeling health-care supply chains exclusively designed to handle crisp and interval data simultaneously.

The outcome of this study will assist the health-care decision-makers in comparing their supply chains against peers and dimensioning their resources to achieve a given level of productions.

A real application to design a real-life pharmaceutical supply chain for the public ministry of health in Morocco is given to support the usefulness of the proposed algorithm.

The novelty of this paper comes from the development of a hybrid approach based on DEA and GP to design an appropriate real-life health-care supply chain in the presence of mixed data. This approach definitely contributes to assist health-care decision-makers design an efficient and effective supply chain in today’s competitive word.

Blockchain technology enhances information management in healthcare supply chains by securing healthcare information and providing medical resource traceability. However, there is no decision framework to support blockchain implementation for managing information, especially in emerging economies’ healthcare supply chains. This paper develops a hierarchical decision model for implementing blockchain technology for information management in emerging economies’ healthcare supply chains.

This study uses 20 health supply chain experts in Ghana to rank 17 decision criteria for implementing blockchain for healthcare information management using the best-worst method (BWM) multi-criteria decision technique.

The results show that “security” and “privacy,” “infrastructural facility” and “presence of training facilities” are the top three critical factors impacting blockchain adoption in the health supply chain for healthcare information management. Other sub-factors are prioritized.

To implement blockchain effectively to enhance information management in the healthcare supply chain, health institutions, blockchain technology providers and state authorities should concentrate on the highly critical factors extracted from the study.

This is the first study that develops a hierarchical decision model for implementing blockchain technology in emerging economies' health supply chains.

A key feature of human rights in health is access to safe, effective and affordable medicines. Pharmacovigilance is advocated for monitoring intended/unintended effects of medicines to assure their safety. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize knowledge about supply chain impediments to safe medicines in developing nations and contribute to future development of research in this field.

This paper conducts a structured literature review based on Preferred Reporting Items for the Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. It aims at profiling supply chain impediments to safe medicines in developing nations by reviewing 46 recent pharmacovigilance-specific papers published between 2005 and 2020.

Analysis of reviewed articles identified criticality of supply chain impediments that affect constituents across pharmaceutical in developing nations, which still struggle to maintain robust national pharmacovigilance systems due to lack of awareness, policy and practices.

Research results can be applied by pharmaceutical industry decision-makers and drug safety professionals in developing nations. Because the review is qualitative in nature, its implication ought to be tested after actual implementation.

This review can help identify underinvestigated impediments and methods to aid in developing new pharmacovigilance knowledge areas in developing nation context.

The review uncovers gaps in global health equity dialogue in developing nations. It also recognizes that macrolevel supply chain impediments exist due to unfair disease burden and health inequities in developing nations.

The paper examines supply chain impediments to safe medicines in developing nations with insights for future pharmacovigilance research. Identifying and classifying supply chain impediments through this review is the first step toward creating effective interventions for these impediments to safe medicines.

This study aims to document students’ supply chain solutions developed through the internship hackathon program. The study profiled innovative solutions developed by university students in Kenya to solve health supply chain logistics challenges during and beyond COVID-19. This is done by exploring students’ experience in developing sustainable logistics and supply chain management capacity-building programs in a low-middle-income country (LMIC).

This study used a qualitative approach to explore the experiences and perceptions of students and mentors who participated in a hackathon program. The study followed a cross-sectional descriptive survey design, collecting data from the participants through online questionnaires. The data were analyzed and presented using thematic analysis and narrative techniques.

Findings provide preliminary evidence for narrowing the gap between theory and practice through a hackathon internship blended with a mentorship program. Assessment of this program provides evidence for developing solutions toward ensuring the availability of essential medicine in LMICs during a pandemic such as COVID-19 by students. The profiled solutions demonstrate a broader perspective of innovative solutions of university students, mentors and potential opportunities for a triple helix approach to innovation for health supply chain system strengthening.

This original study provides evidence for advancing contribution to developing innovative solutions through partnerships between investors, universities and industry practitioners interested in mentoring students in the health-care supply chain during COVID-19 in LMICs. Specifically, contingency factors that affect the implementation of innovative programs during and beyond global pandemics such as COVID-19 by students’ innovators are identified, and implications for policy action are discussed based on the praxis of sensemaking.

This study examines a novel approach that combines internship, mentorship and hackathon projects for logistics and supply chain students in LMICs. The approach aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice and to create innovative solutions for essential medicines during and after COVID-19. The study urges more resources for supporting such programs, as they benefit both academia and industry. The study also argues that hackathon internship programs can help the logistics and supply chain industry adapt to the post-pandemic era. The study offers insights for investors, universities and practitioners in the health-care industry.

This study shows how to develop innovative solutions for the health-care supply chain during COVID-19 in an LMIC through partnerships between investors, universities and industry practitioners who mentor students. The study identifies the contingency factors that influence the success of such programs during and beyond global pandemics such as COVID-19 and discusses the policy implications based on the sensemaking praxis of the student innovators.

The purpose of the paper is to report on a study that investigated the critical success factors (CSFs) in the supply chain management of essential medicines in the public health-care delivery system in Malawi.

The exploratory and descriptive study followed a qualitative and quantitative research approach. Data were collected by means of semistructured interviews and a questionnaire administered to suppliers of essential medicines, regulators, donors and logistics companies in Malawi. Data was analyzed using SPSS.

The findings revealed that the significant CSFs are knowledge of disease patterns and prevalence, skills and experience of personnel, adequate financial resources, collaboration with supply chain partners and an efficient procurement and distribution system.

There were a number of limitations in this study. Although every effort was made to carefully and purposefully select the participants for the in-depth interviews in the first phase of the study and the respondents for the questionnaire in the second phase of the study, they were not randomly selected. As such, the findings cannot be generalised to all stakeholders in the pharmaceutical supply chain in Malawi. However, they can be used as a basis for further research on the topic.

No previous studies that deal with the identification of CSFs in the Malawi pharmaceutical supply chain were found. Therefore, this research makes a twofold contribution to the body of knowledge in the field. First, it identifies CSFs; second, it could assist stakeholders in the public health-care service delivery system in Malawi with regard to how they can improve the supply of essential medicines.

The objective of this exploratory paper is to find out what is important to consider when developing a supply chain in health care, what is required in order to establish a supply chain orientation and how lean and agile can be used as process strategies in order to improve supply chain performance.

In order to build an empirical framework for using both lean and agile strategies in health care supply chain management illustrative examples are provided from a Swedish health care setting describing the patient flow and planning processes.

Supply chain management has potential to work well as a philosophy for patient flow in the health care sector. However, it should not only be about the use of the concept of lean in health care, as in fact is the case in practice today. It is rather about organizing for quick response and flexibility in a hybrid strategy through combining lean and agile process strategies. This can only be done if a systems approach is applied together with a strategic orientation, where cooperative efforts by the supply chain members should synchronize and converge operational as well as strategic capabilities into a unified whole.

The analysis in the paper underlines the importance of focusing on both agility and leanness combined. Hospitals or health care systems that introduce such an approach, as opposed to only relying on lean strategies, could gain both competitive advantages and improved performance.

In health care, even more so than in the manufacturing industry, containment of costs without sacrificing quality is important. This paper applies SCM techniques, tools and concepts that have not been used previously for patient flow in a health care setting, combining lean and agile in one and the same analysis.

This paper aims to explore avenue where suppliers and manufacturers are aligned with health-care providers to improve supply chain visibility. Supply chain finance is explored to link suppliers/manufacturers with health-care providers.

Existing literature on supply chain visibility in health care forms a basis to achieve the study purpose. Alignment calls also for financial health where supply chain partners’ working capital is readily available to execute joint supply chain plan.

There is a disjoint in supply chain alliance between suppliers/manufacturers and providers where providers are unable to trace the origin of supplies. Quality care suffers and cost of care rises as providers search for supplies on an emergency basis. This paper provides a framework where solution can be formulated.

Suppliers/manufactures form a direct strategic alliance with providers where product visibility enables health-care providers with a better patient management with lower cost of supplies. Inventory management and logistics cost will be lowered as better planning/forecasting is in place. This paper does not call for testing any hypothesis. Perhaps, next move along this line will be to investigate financial health of supply chain partners based on supplier relationship management practices.

This paper proposes health-care supply chain as an alternative solution to achieve the following twin purposes: controlling the cost while improving quality of care through supply chain finance. As far as we know, this study is the first attempt to achieve the goals.

The importance of a lean health-care supply chain is increasingly discussed. However, it is still not very clear how lean practices relate to resilience capabilities, as there are synergies and divergences between them. This study aims at identifying the relationship between lean practices and resilience capabilities in the health-care supply chain.

This study conducted a scoping review based on five databases, which allowed the content analysis of 44 articles. Such analysis allowed the verification of trends and volume of studies on this topic. Further, the descriptive numerical and thematic analyses enabled the proposition of a conceptual framework, relating the adoption of lean practices to the development of resilience capabilities according to the tiers of the health-care supply chain in different value streams.

Three research directions were derived from this scoping review: empirical validation of the contribution of lean practices to resilience capabilities in the health-care supply chain; systemic implementation of lean practices across tier levels of the health-care supply chain; and complementary approaches to lean implementation toward a more resilient health-care supply chain.

The understanding of these relationships provides health-care managers arguments to prioritize the application of lean practices to improve desired resilience capabilities in the entire health-care supply chain.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is no similar study in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for the identification, categorization and prioritization of social sustainability barriers in health-care supply chains.

An exploratory survey tool is used to identify barriers that are relevant to a health-care supply chain. The identified barriers are grouped into five main categories and experts’ opinions were applied to validate the content. Finally, an analytical hierarchical process (AHP) is used to prioritize the main categories and sub-categories of the barriers.

The exploratory phase identified 34 barriers that are relevant to a health-care supply chain. These barriers were grouped into the following categories: poor infrastructure, organizational culture, poor coordination, stakeholder disparity, and uncertainty. Organizational culture and poor coordination were assigned the highest priority through the AHP. Overall, lack of management support, lack of commitment and lack of coordination were found to be the top relevant barriers to a health-care supply chain.

This study only explored and prioritized the barriers of social sustainability. Future research should explore the impact of the identified barriers on the overall performance of the hospital supply chain.

The findings of this study may be of value to the local health-care industry in achieving their objectives by overcoming social sustainability barriers, which would in turn facilitate the implementation of social sustainability programs that can positively contribute to the overall supply chain performance.

Social sustainability has grown in importance as a pressurizing issue to push supply chain managers to assess their social impacts on the communities. This is especially important in service supply chains such as health care, where human element is a part of every stage.

Despite practitioners’ and academics’ growing emphasis on the social dimension of sustainability, the categorization and prioritization of social sustainability practices across health-care supply chains and general service care supply chains have not been addressed. This study aims to cover this gap by contributing to both the academic literature and the practical health-care environment.

This paper aims to examine lean thinking in medical commodities supply chains by considering its applications and success factors. It determines the drivers and wastes of medical commodity supply chain, and the existing lean tools and practices together with their application in the supply chain processes. The paper also examined the challenges and success factors for effective lean application in the medical commodities supply chains.

The study used qualitative approaches, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with key informants to form the basis for data collection. Through thematic analysis, the collected data were analyzed by developing themes reflecting the objectives of the study.

The main drivers for waste associated with the supply chain were demand management, supplier development, institutional framework and governance. The wastes were observed at the level of inventory, operation costs, transaction costs, delays in terms of service, commodity delivery time and quality. Digitalization, information technology and standardization were the tools for medical supply chain. Poor infrastructure, unreliable internet supply, environmental uncertainty and poor management support were challenges to realizing an effective supply chain.

Although the qualitative approach used in the study provides detailed information, a quantitative study covers a larger sample for generalization.

Capacity building and professionalism should be given a priority because the philosophy of lean focuses on waste removal and continuous improvement, which highly depends on the quality of human resource (Brito et al., 2020). Limited human resource capabilities in supply chain management will, therefore, result into poor operational efficiency, which are wasted. Moreover, systems interoperability is key waste minimization and, therefore, demands interventions.

The government under the Ministry of Health and other key sector ministries such as local and regional governments should better understand the role of the waste drivers and adopt system-wide reforms to support improvements to remove waste in the medical supply chain. For example, the current institutional framework creates an administrative block and hence leads to wastes. This bureaucratic procedure should be removed to minimize wastes along the chain.

This study is among the first studies to determine applicability and implementation of lean in a resource-constrained context. The paper identifies contextual factors for lean implementation. This paper focused on a holistic view of the entire supply chains to enhance a well-functioning supply chain in delivering health commodities.