A collaborative approach to maintaining optimal inventory and mitigating stockout risks during a pandemic: capabilities for enabling health-care supply chain resilience

Abstract

PurposeInventory management systems in health-care supply chains (HCSC) have been pushed to breaking point by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unanticipated demand shocks due to stockpiling of medical supplies caused stockouts, and the stockouts triggered systematic supply chain (SC) disruptions inconceivable for risk managers working individually with limited information about the pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to respond to calls from the United Nations (UN) and World Health Organization (WHO) for coordinated global action by proposing a research agenda based on a review of current knowledge and knowledge gaps on the role of collaboration in HCSCs in maintaining optimal stock levels and reinforcing resilience against stockout disruptions during pandemics.Design/methodology/approachA systematic review was conducted, and a total of 752 articles were analyzed.FindingsCollaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment practices are under-researched in the HCSC literature. Similarly, a fragmented application of extant SC collaborative risk management capabilities undermines efforts to enhance resilience against systematic disruptions from medical stockouts. The paucity of HCSC articles in humanitarian logistics and SC journals indicates a need for more research interlinking two interdependent yet critical fields in responding to pandemics.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough based on an exhaustive search of academic articles addressing HCSCs, there is a possibility of having overlooked other studies due to search variations in language controls, differences in publication cycle time and database search engines.Originality/valueThe paper relies on COVID-19's uniqueness to highlight the limitations in optimization and individualistic approaches to managing medical inventory and stockout risks in HCSCs. The paper proposes a shift from a fragmented to holistic application of relevant collaboration practices and capabilities to enhance the resilience of HCSCs against stockout ripple effects during future pandemics. The study propositions and suggestion for an SC learning curve provide an interdisciplinary research agenda to trigger early preparation of a coordinated HCSC and humanitarian logistics response to future pandemics.

Improving resilience of the healthcare supply chain in a pandemic: Evidence from Europe during the COVID-19 crisis

“…Overall, improving buyer-supplier visibility was a key lever to strengthen one's information position towards suppliers and bridge dependencies, resulting in enhanced HCSC performance during the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore, we can empirically confirm previous theoretical claims that visibility on supply flows in HCSCs may improve medical supplies availability in a pandemic ( Friday et al, 2021 ), leading to our sixth proposition.…”

“…Overall, our empirical findings support previous theoretical models that cross-hospital resource sharing can prevent medical supplies shortages ( Essoussi, 2015 ; Mehrotra et al, 2020 ). We can also confirm literature-based propositions and anecdotal evidence that pooling medical supplies – either centralized or decentralized – can open up alternative sources for medical supplies and reduce dependencies on established HCSC partners in a pandemic ( Francis, 2020 ; Friday et al, 2021 ). However, our findings also reveal that a more nuanced perspective on different resource pooling approaches is required since centralized medical supplies pooling turned out more effective than the decentralized approach during a pandemic.…”

“…Compared to other risks, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown unique characteristics such as unprecedented demand surges and supply shortages, increased volatility, and an extraordinarily long duration ( Govindan et al, 2020 ; Ivanov and Dolgui, 2020 ). The crisis revealed severe vulnerabilities of the HCSC and has made improving SCRES a key concern among researchers and practitioners ( Friday et al, 2021 ; van Hoek, 2020 ).…”

“…Various procurement practices can enable these critical SCRES antecedents in a HCSC. Standardization of products and procedures can increase HCSC actor's sourcing flexibility and hedge against supplier failures ( Abdulsalam et al, 2015 ; Friday et al, 2021 ). Hospitals can build redundancy by onboarding multiple suppliers to hedge against delivery shortfalls ( Aldrighetti et al, 2019 ).…”

“…High dependence on global SCs and overstrained suppliers and manufacturers were a root cause for the lack of medical supplies in the COVID-19 crisis ( Cohen and van der Rodgers, 2020 ; Finkenstadt and Handfield, 2021 ; Friday et al, 2021 ; Vecchi et al, 2020 ). Finkenstadt and Handfield (2021) suggested that lifting such dependencies could enable a more robust HCSC in the face of crises.…”