| Abstrakt: |
This chapter aims at synthesizing a model of supply chain activities within the context of eBusiness. It builds on the practical experience and incorporates visions of how eBusiness in healthcare might look in the future. It is motivated by the understanding —expressed by all experts interviewed and highlighted by the case studies—that the essence of eBusiness lies in its ability to provide structured error-free data for business analysis, and ultimately for decision-making. It further recognizes that these data result from optimized processes, and at the same time that these data allow the processes to function smoothly. The model is developed taking the four behavioral components of eBusiness into consideration: information distribution and search, transactions, collaboration, and decision-making. Before formulating the model, two major process-oriented supply chain management models are presented and discussed in terms of their use in healthcare. It is concluded that they may provide a suitable framework, but focus too much on manufacturing and the classical supply chain perspective of a major manufacturer with its suppliers and customers. Instead, it is proposed to describe the supply chain in healthcare from the customer's point of view, as it is the customer (namely the healthcare provider) who makes this supply chain specific to healthcare. The supply chain model of eBusiness in healthcare that we present here integrates a process, a document, and a functional model that are all geared to the combined view of clinical and economic issues related to the procurement, provision, and use of medical supplies. To this end, the model description begins with a presentation of the healthcare value chain, supplemented by the information track that is associated with the delivery of patient care, and that finally results in a clinical outcome analysis. The first of the three submodels, the supply chain process model, is split into two parts—the strategic model and the operations model—that both distinguish between healthcare-provider and supplier-specific processes. The second model, the document model, concentrates on data related to the product and shows the various data sources, namely the documents, that become relevant in the product life cycle. Again, these documents embrace clinical as well as economic, cases of use. The document model is structured according to the product life cycle, which starts with product development and clinical trials, continues with products being purchased and used, and finally ends with the decision to replace a product. During this cycle, the main questions to be answered by the data in the various documents pertain to the quality, the costs, and the degree of innovation of the product. The third model, the function model, integrates the process and the document models. Similar functions are grouped into layers. The function model describes the following layers: Content, Contract, Order-to-Payment, Service, Clinical Process, Clinical Outcome, and Knowledge. These layers are arranged as a stack that roughly follows the product's path from the manufacturer to the healthcare providers, where the product is used and where knowledge is accumulated about the product's clinical usefulness and the cost-to-benefit ratio. The supply chain model of eBusiness in healthcare is meant to support practitioners in assessing how supply chain concepts and eBusiness can strengthen their organization and help them develop an appropriate strategy to achieve this goal. In applied sciences, the model is intended to stimulate further questions about what direction supply chain and eBusiness will take in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
