A Cooperative Model to Improve Hospital Equipments and Drugs Management

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A Cooperative Model to Improve Hospital Equipments and Drugs Management

Abstract. The cost of services provided by public and private healthcare systems is nowadays becoming critical. This work tackles the criticalities of hospital equipments and drugs management by emphasizing its implications on the whole healthcare system efficiency. The work presents a multi-agent based model for decisional cooperation in order to address the problem of integration of departments, wards and personnel for improving equipments, and drugs management. The proposed model faces the challenge of (i) gaining the benefits deriving from successful collaborative models already used in industrial systems and (ii) transferring the most appropriate industrial management practices to healthcare systems

Where are you? A preliminary examination of the track and trace mechanisms in place to facilitate effective closed-loop medical equipment retrieval in the National Health Service (NHS) (UK)

yesThe National Health Service (UK) is wholly accountable and heavily scrutinised for its strategy, activity, performance and spending (Appleby, 2016; NHS Confederation, 2016; Parliament UK, 2010), and much research has been undertaken as to its effectiveness at managing its operations and its competency in doing so (Gov.Uk, 2016; National Audit Office, 1999)). The impact of not performing adequately combined with threats such as funding cuts (King’s Fund, 2016), government intervention and private sector competition; has led to uncertainty and disillusion with the sustainability of the service (Hunter, 2016). Based on current economic concerns, this paper chooses to focus on the area of Medical Equipment Loans Services where products are released to patients to aid therapeutic rehabilitation and physical mobility. The aim of this study is to examine the process of product retrieval in a multi-case study analysis and consider how value-added technologies can be used to improve retrieval success rates

Reverse exchange of healthcare devices: the case of hearing aid equipment in the UK

Reverse exchange (RE) in dealing with the return, recycle and reuse of products is receiving a growing focus. When properly handled, RE in healthcare can deliver an economic benefit of cost minimisation and has extensive positive impacts on both human health and the environment (Li and Olorunniwo, 2008) but to date, RE research is mostly limited to pharmaceutical return. This paper investigates the potential for RE benefits in the UK National Health Service (NHS) supply chain for medical devices. Hearing aids supplied to adults with hearing loss are used as an illustrative example. This research applied a consensus approach through the use of dispersed nominal groups in order to obtain qualitative data on information, barriers, solutions and priorities to support findings. Findings illustrate that the end user behaviour of returning the device, and the requirement by NHS Procurement for manufacturers to meet RE targets are secondary to the importance of audiology departments who have the autonomy to design RE processes and successfully implement initiatives. A schematic highlighting the information and materials flow of the supply chain and the barriers and facilitators to RE is presented for hearing aid devices with potential for transferability to other small medical device supply chains