5. Summary and conclusions
This special issue presents a collection of papers that explore
the complexity of supply chain management in health
services. Clearly, much research work needs to be done. All
authors in this special issue emphasize the fact that supply
chain management in a health care setting is characterized by
some unique features, which make it difficult to transfer
knowledge from the industrial sector to a health care sector in
a direct way. At the same time however, it can be concluded
that existing concepts, models and supply chain practices can
be extended to supply chain management in health services
and existing research underpins the assumption that the
health sector can benefit from the lessons learned in the
industrial sector.
Starting from the research classification matrix depicted in
Figure 2, many issues that need to be explored further, can be
addressed. Based on the papers in this special issue, at least
five main research areas with respect to supply chain
management in a health care setting can be defined.
First of all, it seems to be important to further explore the
role information technology can play in supporting the
management and control of supply chain practices.
Additionally, more research seems to be necessary toaddress the enablers and barriers when implementing
information technology in a health service context. Second,
the influence of different stakeholders on establishing supply
chain management relationships both within as well as
between different health service providers still is rather
unknown. It seems to be worthwhile therefore, to study into
more depth the influence of power and interest relationships
between the stakeholders during the process of adopting,
shaping and implementing supply chain management
relationships. Third, it seems to be of importance to study
into more depth the strengths and weakness of management
philosophies like lean and agile manufacturing, business
process management and Lean Six Sigma in the context of
health services. Many of these philosophies are often used
together with supply chain management practices. Little is
known however, about how these philosophies are applied by
health care providers and to what extent health care providers
can benefit from these practices. A fourth main field of
research which can be associated with supply chain
management in health services relates to performance
metrics and the results being achieved by health care
organisations when implementing supply chain practices.
Clearly, performance measurements in a health care setting
seems to be more complicated compared to industrial
companies due to the complexity of concepts like “quality
of care” and the rather tacit character of some performance
metrics. There seems to be a general consensus about the
added value supply chain management practices can have for
health care organisations. Making this added value more
explicit by performance metrics as well as the conditions
under which this added value emerges without doubt is one of
the main challenges research on supply chain management in
a health service context is facing. Finally, applying supply
chain management concepts to patient flows requires special
attention to the specifics of services. Being inseparable multiactor
delivery processes in which the patient himself
participates as both object and co-creator in the interaction
with various healthcare professionals (customer-supplier
duality) supply chain management in a service setting is far
from simple. New developed concepts of disease management
for chronic diseases show that supply chains get longer with
combinations of different care providers in which the patient
himself often is in the lead. How this interacts with and
influences the supply chain definitely is an important and
challenging issue in future research on healthcare Supply
Chain Management.
In line with the conclusions of Croom et al. (2000), it can
be concluded therefore that next to studies with a monodisciplinary
focus, an interdisciplinary focus on supply chain
management issues in health services seems to be necessary.
The complexity of the questions as well as the multidimensional
scope of the problems requires knowledge from
different disciplines. Hopefully, this special issue is going to be
a small step towards gaining a more thorough understanding
of supply chain management in health care services.