Improving Productivity in Healthcare Business, Essay Example

Introduction

This paper focuses on the supply chain and the important role that this plays in a hospital or healthcare administration system. Statistics show that supply chain costs rose by 40% between 2003-2005 and now covers 31% of the financial budget for operational costs. (Carey, 2013). The proposal is for the business to re-examine its cost foundation in the area of supply chain management and make improvements where considered appropriate. A supply chain may be defined as the number of business practices that move goods from that of raw materials through supply, production and the final distribution of the goods to the customer. Most manufacturing organizations have a supply chain of some description. It is considered that all effective management practices must take into consideration the efficiencies of the component within the chain in order to avoid loss of quality and important customers within the business. (Gattorna, 1998)

The Process

Within any supply chain there are five key elements: 1) Production 2) Supply 3) Inventory 4) Location and 5) Transportation and Information. In order to obtain the efficiencies derived from supply chain management it is important to understand the end use. This assists in better constructs that leads towards improved processes of exchange. It is important not to clog the process with unnecessary beurocracy or too much cumbersome administrative paperwork.  Getting people to adopt this requires good organization of information. Computers and software provide important valuable assists in the achievement of these objectives but it still remains important to conduct regular business process analysis and eliminate any redundancies or duplication of effort. (Uzsoy, 2013).

Conclusions

The larger more complex business operations are moving towards the installation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems that embrace supply chain management. These integrated systems use a single relational database management (rdbms) system. If these are installed properly they can offer significant competitive advantages to the firm. There are however some drawbacks in that they are extremely expensive to set up and install. Those firms that have trodden down this path agree that this is an investment over time. The rewards show at a later date once you gain formal control over inventories and the movement of goods in the organization. (Eugene S. Schneller, 2006).

References

Carey, W. (2013, 7 26). Reducing health care costs through supply chain management . Retrieved from KnowPC: http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?aid=143

Eugene S. Schneller, L. R. (2006). Strategic Management of the Health Care Supply Chain. New York: Wiley.

Gattorna, J. (1998). Strategic Supply Chain Alignment: Best Practice in Supply Chain Management. In J. Gattorna, Strategic Supply Chain Alignment: Best Practice in Supply Chain Management (p. 587). New York: Gower Publishing.

Uzsoy, R. (2013, 7 26). Supply chain management and health care delivery: Persuing system level understanding. Retrieved from Purdue University: http://www.ncbi.nlm.gov/books/NBK22867/?report=printable