3,983 research outputs found

    The drug logistics process: an innovation experience

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    Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present the latest innovations in the drug distribution processes of hospital companies, which are currently dealing with high inventory and storage costs and fragmented organizational responsibilities. Design/methodology/approach - The literature review and the in-depth analysis of a case study support the understanding of the unit dose drug distribution system and the subsequent definition of the practical implications for hospital companies. Findings - Starting from the insights offered by the case study, the analysis shows that the unit dose system allows hospitals to improve the patient care quality and reduce costs. Research limitations/implications - The limitations of the research are those related to the theoretical and exploratory nature of the study, but from a practical point of view, the work provides important indications to the management of healthcare companies, which have to innovate their drug distribution systems. Originality/value - This paper analyzes a new and highly topical issue and provides several insights for the competitive development of a fundamental sector

    A review of radio frequency identification technologies and impacts on the hospital supply chain: 2002–2012

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    Supply costs are the second largest expenditure in hospitals, accounting for more than one third of the average operating budget. RFID technology can reduce these costs, improve patient safety, and supply chain management by increasing the ability to track and locate equipment, as well as monitoring theft prevention, distribution management, and patient billing. Findings of this study have shown that the application of RFID on medical equipment and supplies have resulted in efficiency increase in healthcare with lower costs and increased quality services. Even though the cost of RFID implementation is decreasing, the total expenditures are still significant and the return on investment remains unclear

    Analysis of the supply chain management in a Portuguese public hospital: a case study

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    A situação atual das unidades de saúde é caracterizada pelo custo crescente da prestação dos cuidados, pelo consequente agravamento da situação financeira e pelos processos complicados e morosos. Aliados à procura crescente, podem tornar-se fatores que tornam a resposta do serviço deficiente. Devido a esta situação, uma gestão mais eficiente e eficaz da logística e da cadeia de abastecimento é reconhecida transversalmente como uma das principais áreas de melhoria. A fim de dar a conhecer quais as áreas a melhorar, vários objetivos foram contemplados neste trabalho, como a análise dos métodos e critérios de seleção de medicamentos em farmácias hospitalares, a definição de obstáculos à gestão racional de stocks e a análise de dados históricos para previsão da procura futura num hospital público português. O estudo revelou que alguns dos 1.346 produtos presentes no ERP da farmácia não têm dados históricos suficientes para criar uma previsão precisa. Neste contexto, e considerando um nível de serviço de 99%, 41% dos produtos têm stock superior ao que deveria ser o stock máximo, cerca de € 147.908,87 de imobilizado e 11% dos produtos estavam, à data, em risco de esgotar stock. A evolução dos sistemas de informação nos Hospitais deve garantir a sustentabilidade tecnológica da transformação digital, o alinhamento com as medidas de racionalização das TIC, a melhoria do serviço ao cliente e a melhoria da qualidade da informação disponibilizada ao utilizador. Por outro lado, considerando o atual evento de pandemia, foi analisado o seu impacto na cadeia de abastecimento hospitalar. A mudança de comportamento dos pacientes hospitalizados levou a duas quebras nítidas em dois indicadores relevantes, o número de consultas hospitalares e os gastos com medicamentos. Estes indicadores mostram que existe menos procura de serviços hospitalares regulares programados, com menos 1,9M de consultas realizadas nos Hospitais Públicos portugueses. No que concerne o consumo de medicamentos a nível nacional, previu-se um custo adicional de 103M € até ao final do ano, mais elevado do que nos anos anteriores.The current situation of healthcare units is characterized by the increasing cost of providing the respective care, the consequent deterioration of the financial situation and the complicated and time-consuming processes. Allied to the growing demand, they could become factors that make the service demand deficient. Due to this situation, more efficient and effective logistics and supply chain management is transversally recognized as one of the main areas for improvement. In order to provide insight on which areas to improve, several objectives where looked after in this work, as the analysis of the methods and criteria for the selection of medicines in hospital pharmacies, the definition of obstacles to the rational management of stocks and analysis of historical data to forecast future demand of a Portuguese public hospital. The study revealed that some of the 1346 products present on the pharmacy’s ERP do not have sufficient historical data to create an accurate forecast. With this context, and considering a service level of 99%, 41% of products have a stock higher than what should be the maximum stock, approximately € 147.908,87 of fixed assets and 11% of the products were, at the time, at risk of going out of stock. The importance of the evolution of core information system of Hospitals was at stake, ensuring the technological sustainability of the ongoing digital transformation, alignment with ICT rationalization measures, improvement of customer service and improvement of the quality of information available to the user. On a side note, considering the current event of pandemics, it was analyzed its impact on hospital supply chain. The change in the behavior of hospital patients led to two clear breaks in two relevant indicators, the number of hospital visits and spending on medication. These indicators show that there is less demand for scheduled hospital services, 1,9M less consultations carried out in Portuguese Public Hospitals. In these times, the capacity for hospital care and intensive care is exceeded, creating a significant challenge. In Portugal, as the impact of the pandemic on medication consumption nationwide, it was predicted an additional cost of € 103M by the end of the year, higher than in previous years

    Access to medical products in the South-East Asia Region, 2021

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    At the Seventy-first session of the WHO Regional Committee in September 2018, intercountry technical consultations following the Decision SEA/RC70(3) that was adopted by the Seventieth session of the Regional Committee led to the adoption of the ministerial “Delhi Declaration on Improving Access to Essential Medical Products in the Region and Beyond”. The Delhi Declaration1 was significant as it included a commitment for access to the entire range of medical products for achieving universal health coverage and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In addition, SEA Region Member States actively participated in global consultations that led to the adoption of significant World Health Assembly resolutions on this subject. In Health Assembly resolution WHA72.8 of 2019 on “Improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines and other health products”, the World Health Assembly expanded the scope of “health products” to include “medicines, vaccines, medical devices, diagnostics, assistive products, cell- and gene-based therapies, and other health technologies”. Despite improvements in the availability of essential medical products in the Region, access of essential medicines and other essential medical products continues to pose a challenge. The high level of out-of-pocket (OOP) spending on health care in many SEA Region countries is a matter of concern, and is pushing around 65 million into poverty every year. This is mainly on account of spending on medical products, particularly medicines that account for the major share of OOP payment, in several countries of the Region

    Reengineering the management process of hospital consumable medical supplies to reduce cost and improve quality: an empirical study in China

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    JEL: M00As the society continues developing and people’s living standards rise in China, the top priority of its new medical reform has become pushing forward public hospital reform and optimizes the medical service system. At the same time, the medical reform’s guiding principles for operating the country’s hospital system have changed into maintaining non-profit medical institutions as the main body of the healthcare system, for-profit medical institutions as supplements; public medical institutions playing the leading role, and encouraging the concurrent development of non-public medical institutions. This change in guiding principles has led to intensified competition among hospitals. To survive in the competition, hospitals are emphasizing on reducing cost and improving service quality. Therefore, reducing cost and providing high quality medical services has become an important goal for hospital management. With continued advancement of medical technologies, the type and the quantity of medical supplies have been continuously increasing. The number of wasted medical supplies has also been increasing rapidly. Medical supplies include three major categories, namely, pharmaceuticals, consumable medical supplies, and medical logistical materials (Fu, 2009). This thesis aims to study the management of consumable medical supplies. This thesis examines how hospitals can achieve inventory reduction of hospital consumable supplies, improve management quality, and lower cost by reengineering and optimizing the management process of the whole lifecycle of consumable medical supplies, including production, circulation, hospital, units and utilization, and by utilizing information management systems. The first half of the thesis describes the theoretical bases of reengineering and optimization as well as information systems utilized to achieve improved hospital consumable supply management. The second half uses three groups of data, namely, interviews, a case study and questionnaire surveys, to provide analysis results of successful use of reengineering and optimization as well as information system to improve hospital consumable supply management process in China. The first group of data includes interviews of several managers from three companies providing hospital consumable medical supplies which offer qualitative analyses regarding the problems in hospital consumable medical supply management process, solutions to resolve those problems, and challenges in solution implementing. The second group of data includes a case study of a large hospital in Shanghai, from the supplier’s perspective, of their consumable medical supply management process resulted from the restructured information systems platform. The third group of data includes questionnaire survey responses from leaders of multiple hospitals regarding comparisons of its consumable medical supply management process and results between before and after the implementation of the information systems platform.À medida que a sociedade Chinesa se desenvolve e as condições de vida melhoram, a prioridade da reforma médica tem vindo a concentrar-se na reestruturação dos hospitais públicos e na otimização do sistema médico nacional. Ao mesmo tempo, os princípios orientadores do funcionamento do sistema hospitalar nacional mantêm as instituições médicas não orientadas para o lucro como o corpo principal da sistema de saúde, e as instituições orientadas para o lucro como suplementares; em suma, enquanto as instituições médicas públicas desempenham o papel principal no sistema de saúde, o desenvolvimento de instituições privadas é incentivado. Esta mudança de princípios desencadeou uma concorrência entre hospitais. Para sobreviverem no ambiente cada vez mais concorrencial, os hospitais concentraram-se na redução de custos e na melhoria da qualidade dos seus serviços. Deste modo a redução dos custos e a melhoria dos serviços médicos prestados transformaram-se em objetivos principais, para os gestores hospitalares. Com a evolução contínua das tecnologias médicas, o tipo e a quantidade de fornecimentos hospitalares tem vindo a aumentar. A quantidade de desperdícios resultantes dos fornecimentos hospitalares tem também aumentado de uma forma muito rápida. Os fornecimentos hospitalares consumíveis incluem três categorias: farmacêutica, consumíveis médicos e materiais de logística (Fu, 2009). Esta tese tem como objetivo principal investigar a gestão dos fornecimentos médicos consumíveis. Esta tese investiga como os hospitais podem diminuir o inventário dos fornecimentos hospitalares consumíveis, melhorar a qualidade da gestão e baixar o custo através da reengenharia e otimização da gestão de todo o processo de vida dos consumíveis médicos, incluindo a produção, a circulação e utilização, apoiando-se sistemas de informação para a gestão. A primeira parte desta tese descreve as bases teóricas da reengenharia e otimização, assim como dos sistemas de informação utilizados para conseguir a melhoria da gestão dos fornecimentos. A segunda parte utiliza três tipos de dados, nomeadamente, dados recolhidos através de entrevistas, dados provenientes de um caso, e dados recolhidos através de um questionário. Estes dados permitem-nos descrever casos de sucesso na melhoria da gestão dos fornecimentos hospitalares na China. Os dados provenientes das entrevistas a gestores de três empresas fornecedoras de consumíveis médicos permitem-nos, uma visão qualitativa dos problemas e soluções para os resolver. Os dados provenientes do estudo de caso de um grande hospital de Shanghai, na perspetiva dos fornecedores fornecem-nos uma ideia da importância da existência de plataforma de sistemas de informação. O terceiro grupo de dados é proveniente dos questionários administrados a gestores de hospitais onde se questiona sobre a situação da gestão dos consumíveis médicos hospitalares antes e depois da existência de plataformas de informação

    Climate Change and the Health Sector

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    The health sector is known to be one of the major contributors towards the greenhouse gas emissions causing the climate crisis, the greatest health threat of the 21st century. This volume positions the health sector as a leader in the fight against climate change and explores the role of the health system in climate policy action. It delivers an overview of the linkages between climate change and the health sector, with chapters on the impact of climate change on health, its connection to pandemics, and its effects on food, nutrition and air quality, while examining gendered and other vulnerabilities. It delves into the different operational aspects of the health sector in India and details how each one can become climate-smart to reduce the health sector’s overall carbon footprint, by looking at sustainable procurement, green and resilient healthcare infrastructure, and the management of transportation, energy, water, waste, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and plastics in healthcare. Well supplemented with rigorous case studies, the book will be indispensable for students, teachers, and researchers of environmental studies, health sciences, and climate change. It will be useful for healthcare workers, public health officials, healthcare leaders, policy planners, and those interested in climate resilience and preparedness in the healthcare sector

    Applications of Contemporary Management Approaches in Supply Chains

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    In today's rapidly changing business environment, strong influence of globalization and information technologies drives practitioners and researchers of modern supply chain management, who are interested in applying different contemporary management paradigms and approaches, to supply chain process. This book intends to provide a guide to researchers, graduate students and practitioners by incorporating every aspect of management paradigms into overall supply chain functions such as procurement, warehousing, manufacturing, transportation and disposal. More specifically, this book aims to present recent approaches and ideas including experiences and applications in the field of supply chains, which may give a reference point and useful information for new research and to those allied, affiliated with and peripheral to the field of supply chains and its management

    A comparative analysis of user insights for e-health development challenges in Turkey, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and United Arab Emirates

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    Implementation of e-health is expected to affect the outcomes of medical services positively, by contributing to the effectiveness and efficiency of overall healthcare ecosystem. This becomes more crucial in developing countries where access, finance, resources and competent professionals in healthcare are limited. This field study assesses healthcare professionals’ insights, for the major challenges of ehealth development with a distinctive model and comparative analysis in four emerging countries; Turkey, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The research is conducted by user questionnaires and face to face interviews of healthcare professionals. Results indicate that information communication technology infrastructure, regulations, cultural and clinical adaptation of users, financing, supply chain management are some major challenges. Specially trust to e-business in healthcare, compliant use of big data in digital health and patient privacy play a key role for faster development of e-health.Publisher's Versio
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