The Future And Evolving Role Of Healthcare Supply Chain Management In Medical Industry
The supply chain usually refers to the resources needed to deliver goods or services to the end user. In healthcare, management of the supply chain is generally a very complex and fragmented process. Healthcare supply chain management is a process of acquiring resources, handling supplies and delivering goods and services to providers and end users. To complete the process, information about medical components and services typically goes through a number of independent stakeholders, including manufacturers, insurance companies, hospitals, providers, group purchasing organizations, and several regulatory agencies.
The healthcare supply chain is a vast, disintegrating network of products and players, held together by manual and mass-intensive processes. Managing the flow of information, supplies, equipment, and services from manufacturers to distributors to providers of care is particularly difficult in clinical supply chains, compared to more technology-intensive industries such as consumer goods or industrial manufacturing.
In recent years, effective supply-chain management has emerged as an important competitive advantage for companies in very different industries. Many major companies, such as Walmart and Dell Computer, differ from their rivals in the way they manage their supply chains compared to the supplies provided by their particular products or services. A supply chain can be defined as the physical and informational resources needed to provide a good or service to the end consumer. In the broadest sense, a supply chain includes all activities related to manufacturing, raw material extraction, processing, storage and storage, and transportation. Therefore, for large multinationals that manufacture complex products, such as automobiles, machines, or personal computers, supply chains are highly complex socioeconomic systems.
Technology providing advanced planning, synchronization, and collaboration upstream to large supply manufacturers and distributors is rarely used in the world's larger and more sophisticated hospitals. This article outlines the current state of health care supply chain management technologies, addresses the possible reasons for the lack of adoption of technologies and provides a roadmap for the development of technology for the future. This piece is based on both quantitative and qualitative research assessments of the healthcare chain conducted during the last years.
Top Companies Profiling in this Study
1. Advocate Health Care, Inc.
2. AmerisourceBergen Corporation
3. Intermountain Healthcare
4. McKesson Corporation
5. Providence Health & Services
6. SAP SE
7. SpendVu
8. STERLING HEALTHCARE LOGISTICS.
9. Vizient Inc.
10. VUEMED