Supply Chain Management in Health Care

Name Contact Address Phone Number Email Institute Word count

Akhil Kumar Rungta FS-35, Jawahar Bhawan , IIT Roorkee, Uttarakhand 9027877308 ,7579181185 akhil.rungta@gmail.com , rungta_akhil@yahoo.co.in DoMS, IIT Roorkee 944

You can make even a parrot into a learned political economist. All he must learn are the two words: Supply and Demand - Anon

SCM- the process of planning, implementing & controlling the operations of the supply chain with the purpose of efficiently satisfying the customer requirements. It encompasses the planning & management of all activities involved in procurement, usage and logistics. The health care sector being one of the most gigantic sectors in India approximated to be around 80billion $, was unfortunately a very fragmented & non-competitive sector till now. Efforts are being made to not only modernize the services by making use of state-of-the-art equipments but also to provide world class services to the patients keeping in my mind all the stakeholders involved. Different business models like Hub and Spoke Model, and Networking Model is being adopted by the corporate sector off late but the primary focus has been to reap profits out of it. With the rising demand its almost certain that there will be a tremendous need for the private players to fill in the gap that cannot be solely handled by the public sector. Now if we look at SCM in Hospitals we find the need to adopt a TQM approach, i.e. total quality management by an optimal utilisation of resources. We need to efficiently integrate the entire stake holders involved- the suppliers, vendors, patients, emergency, stores & purchase, & all other services being offered. It involves the management of hospital staff, equipments & doctors in such a way so as to provide the customer with the utmost amount of satisfactory treatment in a very reasonable amount of time & money. It is therefore necessary for all departments involved in the purchase, storage & handling of medical equipment to work closely to monitor & process the high volume of transactions involved at regular intervals. The purchase department should try to procure the inventory at lower prices & good quality by trying to reduce the inventory levels, & asking the suppliers to maintain a shorter lead time. In order to achieve this they need to follow the procedures of group purchase, competitive bidding & one-to-one negotiation. Online transactions would increase further efficiency by maintaining a self-automated database. Here, the purchase departments role is very crucial. Every day-to-day operational activities right from surgical instruments used by doctors to basic office requirements are procured by purchase dept. Therefore the need to concentrate on the following factors- right source, right quality, right quantity , right price & right time for supply of these requisites. Here, it is imperative for the hospitals to keep a track of the various vendors associated & rate them accordingly on the above mentioned factors. Some other influencers besides the ones mentioned could be financial position, production capacity, goodwill, process capacity & transport facilities they provide. Thus vendor analysis is to be carried out with utmost care. Some parameters to rate they can be listed as: Size/Production capacity Geographical relation Packaging Warranty

On time-delivery After sales service, technical assistance & complaint handling Emergency aid, etc.

SCM is a major link in having effective vendor relations, vendor evaluation, vendor development and negotiation.

STORAGE:Vital functions of a store include acquisition, evaluation, warehousing, maintenance, accounting and distributing goods and supplies to all the departments of the hospital. In order to undergo efficient mechanism stores must collaborate & gel well with all the other departments of the hospital. Logistics involve the strategic management of the flow of materials into & through an organization & its channels in order to achieve cost effective fulfilment of orders.

Important issues in Health Care: Medicines have a shelf life & most of them are so expensive that there needs to be a fool proof strategy to deal with them

Moreover , they require certain temperature & humidity controlled environment which is another issue to keep them in best condition They should be issued on a FIFO basis...First in First out...to counter the 1st issue mentioned Doctors should be alerted regarding the expiry dates of medicines soon to come An agreement with vendors should clearly emphasize on two facts- to provide maximum shelf life drugs & to replace them within a stipulated time before expiry to avoid losses

All this is to be dealt by the logistics manager & he should ensure smooth communication & flow between all the stake holders involved.

CONCLUSION:SCM is not only a hype that is being created. It has become a necessity for all the hospitals round the world to open their eyes to. Those which have implemented the same have experienced noteworthy reduction in inventory, increase in the on-time delivery & huge reduction in out of stock rates. Most importantly JIT (Just in time) system should be adopted & it should be ensured that all the touch points involved should be well connected & organised. Technology with its magnanimous advances has promoted the idea of the order status being visible along the entire supply chain even in case of adverse situations thus increasing the throughput & awareness sensitivity. End to end transparency & visibility is maintained right from the manufacturer to the end customer thus enabling lot of time & cost saving. The days to come would foresee such an irreplaceable necessity to maintain the SCM thus ensuring better services at large to the masses. After all, the supply chain is everybodys business.