Strategic health care logistics planning in emergency management

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide, first, an explication of the interconnectivity of logistics as an element of health care disaster posturing and second, to use a context of strategic‐level planning, for supply chain management's inclusion in health care emergency management planning.Design/methodology/approachUsing a review of existent literature, this work examines and expounds upon the impact of effective supply chain management processes in disaster mitigation and planning.FindingsThis paper presents a discourse in health care supply chain management's involvement in disaster mitigation by clarifying the role of logistics in strategic‐level planning.Practical implicationsOptimally, for a health care organization to be truly prepared for disaster, leaders must first have a sound logistics platform from whence support and sustainment are received. For an organization to be truly prepared logistically, however, there must exist a basic understanding of principles related to emergency management and health care operations.Social implicationsArguably, a critical path to success in health care supply chain readiness posturing involves evidence‐based, critically applied insight into disaster mitigation and preparations across multiple echelons of managerial responsibilities.Originality/valueA key recurring problem is that little research is available or related specifically to health care logistics management. Few works can be found concerning health care supply chain management's involvement in disaster posturing. In an applied sense, the paper provides health care managers with concepts related to effective crisis mitigation.