Abstract
Purpose: Healthcare is a universally used service that hugely affects economies and the quality of life. The research of service supply chains has found a significant role in the past decade. The main research goal of this paper is to model and simulate the internal service supply chains of a healthcare system to study the effects of different parameters on the outputs and capability measures of the processes. The specific objectives are to analyse medication delivery errors in a community hospital based on the results of the models and to explore the presence of bullwhip effect in the internal service supply chains of the hospital. Design/methodology/approach: System dynamics which is an approach for understanding the behaviour of complex systems, used as a methodology to model two internal service supply chains of the hospital with a sub-model created to simulate medication delivery errors in the hospital. The models are validated using the actual data of the hospital and the results are analyzed based on experimental design techniques. Findings: It is observed that the bullwhip effect may not occur in a hospital’s internal service supply chains. Furthermore the paper points out the conditions for reducing the medication delivery error in a hospital. Research limitations/implications: Because of the community hospital’s data availability the type of service supply chains modelled in this paper, are small service supply chains, representing only the tasks which are done inside the hospital. To better observe the bullwhip effect in healthcare service supply chains, the chains should be modelled more generally. Originality/value: The original system dynamics modelling of the internal service supply chains of a community hospital, with a sub-model simulating the medication delivery error.
Highlights
In today’s global market, competition is ever increasing and companies are widely adopting customer-focused strategies in integrated-system approaches
It is observed that the bullwhip effect may not occur in a hospital’s internal service supply chains
Several challenges like the complexity of processes, the need for efficient utilization of resources, the need to control the workload of the healthcare employees, and the public pressure on healthcare institutions to control costs while increasing the quality of services are involved with the healthcare industry (Baltacioglu et al, 2007)
Summary
In today’s global market, competition is ever increasing and companies are widely adopting customer-focused strategies in integrated-system approaches. Control the workload of the healthcare employees, and the public pressure on healthcare institutions to control costs while increasing the quality of services are involved with the healthcare industry (Baltacioglu et al, 2007) All these challenges prove the importance of supply chain management in healthcare organizations. In 2006, the Institute of Medicine estimated that medication-related errors harm approximately 1.5 million people in the U.S, costing the nation at least $3.5 billion annually To help with these challenges, improving service supply chain for medication delivery processes in a hospital is very important. Anderson et al (2005) studied the dynamic behavior of service supply chains in the presence of varying demand and information sharing Their model presented the relationships between capacity, processing, backlog and service delays at each stage in the supply chain. To explore the presence of bullwhip effect in the internal service supply chains of the hospital
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
