Managing Healthcare Supply Chain During Epidemic and Pandemic

Abstract

AbstractWith the advent of twenty-first century, epidemics and pandemics are frequently hitting the human society severely and affecting the world as whole and poor people in particular. As the globalization trend is increasing, biological disasters are not restricted to a localized area but spreads more rapidly than previously. Its results are impacting the social, economic and environmental spheres of human society. This has led to a disruption of supply chain particularly in healthcare sector, which becomes important during these situations. This study is being conducted for identifying the issues, which possibly leads to the disruption of healthcare supply chain during epidemic and pandemic situations. Best and Worst Method (BWM) is being employed for analyzing the factors through pairwise comparison of disruption of healthcare supply chain to generate reliable results. The criteria are ranked based on their average weightage obtained through Best and Worst Method. The results indicated “Inefficient executive leadership” as most crucial factor in managing healthcare SCM during crisis. The data from the study will help organizations, government officials, stakeholders and managers in identifying and optimizing the SCM during epidemic and pandemic.KeywordsHealthcare supply chain managementEpidemic and pandemic