A Process Reference Model for Hospital Supply Chain of Pharmaceutical Products

Abstract

An implementation of business process reengineering (BPR) is more complex in healthcare than other industries. Interdepartmental collaboration and acceptance of change are essential requirements. To achieve success, a prerequisite tool should be provided in the form of a process reference model (PRM). The structure of a competent PRM that includes necessary components is firstly proposed by consideration of the crucial requirements for BPR in healthcare systems. According to the proposed PRM structure, a Hospital supply chain PROcess reference Model of pharmaceutical products (H-PROM) has been constructed through an empirically based method. The heart of H-PROM is presented in this paper. Initially, a process reference framework is framed as a skeleton of the model. Then the core hospital tasks are defined and described in detail. Furthermore, these reference tasks are also represented in the form of a standard business process diagram using business process modelling notation (BPMN). These contributions can benefit a process engineer or an organisation from the developed PRM, in order to quickly understand the hospital supply chain system and accept change. Besides, this approach can be a way to propose the key ingredient for facilitating BPR in other healthcare processes.