Processes, episodes and events in health service supply chains

Lillrank, Paul; Groop, Johan; Venesmaa, Julia

doi:10.1108/13598541111127182

Cited by 57 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 27 publications

(25 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Instead flexibility at different levels of healthcare provision is needed (e.g. Aronsson et al, 2011;Bohmer, 2005;de Vries and Huijsman, 2011;Lillrank et al, 2011;Rahimnia and Moghadasian, 2010;Towill and Christopher, 2005). An agile approach, designed to accommodate unpredictable demand including low volumes per individual 'product' and high levels of 'product' variety (Christopher and Towill, 2000) could provide the necessary flexibility in health care delivery.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing a variable acute patient flow – categorising the strategies

Olsson

Aronsson

2015

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Purpose – This paper aims to explore if actions used at a hospital to manage a variable acute patient flow can be categorised using the concepts of lean, agile and leagile. Design/methodology/approach – Empirical evidence from a university hospital was gathered by interviews, internal documents, shadowing and participation in meetings. Identified actions used at both hospital level and departmental level are categorised as lean or agile, while combinations of actions are compared with different leagile approaches. Findings – Actions from every lean and agile category derived from literature are used at the hospital, however in varying extent. Many agile actions are reactive, indicating a lack of proactive measures. Actions that directly manage external variation are also few in numbers. Leagile approaches of all three combinations derived from literature are also used at the hospital. Research limitations/implications – As a single-case study is used, empirical generalisation to other hospitals cannot be deduced. Future research assessing the appropriateness of different actions for managing a variable acute patient flow is encouraged. Practical implications – The use of actions within both lean and agile categories indicate the possibility of combining these process strategies in hospitals, and not only focusing on implementing lean. By cleverly combining lean and agile actions, leagile approaches can be formed. Originality/value – The use of lean in health care has been a topic of research, while the use of agile has been sparsely researched, as well as the combination of the two.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managing a variable acute patient flow – categorising the strategies

Olsson

Aronsson

2015

Supply Chain Management: An International Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…With the uncertainty concerning the optimal testing strategy, the effects of a given treatment, the potential interactions of multiple diseases and treatments for these patients, Bohmer (2005) argues for an increased need for customization and a lower possible level of standardization. In contrast to more standardized care, which consists of an orderly sequence of steps, customized care is iterative because each diagnostic test or test of therapy generates new information that influences future decisions (Bohmer, 2005;Lillrank et al, 2011). The relationship between patient flow variability and the two dimensions discussed above are visualised in Figure 4.2 (no.…”

Section: Figure 41 -Daily Arrival Pattern For the Ed And An Inpatienmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bohmer, 2005;de Vries and Huijsman, 2011;Lillrank et al, 2011;Rahimnia and Moghadasian, 2010;Towill and Christopher, 2005). How to combine standardized and customized care both in terms of entire healthcare supply chains (Towill and Christopher, 2005), for individual patients (Bohmer, 2005), and everything in-between Lillrank et al, 2011;Rahimnia and Moghadasian, 2010) is a challenge that requires further research from the healthcare logistics and SCM field.…”

Section: Provide Guidance In How To Develop Healthcare Logistics and mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many authors emphasise the need for flexibility in healthcare provision (e.g. Bohmer, 2005;de Vries and Huijsman, 2011;Lillrank et al, 2011;Rahimnia and Moghadasian, 2010;Towill and Christopher, 2005). Towill and Christopher (2005) discuss the use of standardised and customized care for groups of patients by elaborating the use of healthcare pipelines, where a pipeline refers to the flow of patients from referral to full recovery.…”

Section: Figure 41 -Daily Arrival Pattern For the Ed And An Inpatienmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Managing Variable Patient Flows at Hospitals

Olsson¹

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Healthcare is a large industry faced with major challenges, such as decreasing inpatient bed numbers and increases in the share of elderly people, which require improved efficiency and effectiveness. The organisation of hospitals normally comprises highly specialised clinical departments, through which patient flows are managed. Since patient flows often involve several clinical departments, this requires much coordination both in space and time. With every individual patient having different diseases, severity levels and responses to therapy, the variability in patient flows has an impact on the inflow, internal flow and outflow at clinical departments and hospitals. Historically, healthcare resources have not been adapted to these variations. The purpose of this licentiate thesis is therefore to explore how variable patient flows are managed in hospitals. This comprises how variable patient flows affect hospitals as well as how variable patient flows are handled. It also includes the organisational configuration, and the influence it has on the actions used to handle variable patient flows in hospitals.Both the hierarchical levels, roles and teams that make decisions and manage the flow of patients as well as the actions used to handle variable patient flows at hospitals are included in the research. Hence, an approach where the hospital is regarded as a system is used, an approach often described as a system perspective. Three research methods have been used in this licentiate thesis. The first research method used was simulation modelling, to study how changes in an acute patient flow affected an emergency department and inpatient ward at a small hospital. A case study at a university hospital was performed to study both the actions used to handle variable patient flows as well as the influence of the organisational configuration. Several literature reviews, both structured and unstructured, has also been made to compare and evaluate the results from the empirical data.There are several effects of variable patient flows. The case study indicates that increased patient flow variability leads to increases in bed utilization variability and thereby problems with bed shortages. Mismatches between patient inflow and outflow, in terms of number of patients, also lead to bed shortages. Literature reviews also show that bed shortages in inpatient wards are a major cause of overcrowding in emergency departments. The results from the simulation model point toward emergency departments being more adapted to variable patient inflow than inpatient wards. To handle these issues there is a need for flexibility when providing healthcare services, something suggested in the literature.50 actions used at the university hospital to handle variable acute patient flows were identified in the research. A majority of these are used to handle the effects of the variation, not the variation itself. Nor is it effects of individual variations, such as patient inflow, that are handled but the combined effect of the variations i...

show abstract

“…Although the supply chain concept is increasingly being used in sectors outside of manufacturing services (e.g. Sampson, 2000;Ellram et al, 2004;Giannakis, 2011;Lillrank et al, 2011;Vries and Huijsman, 2011;Shi and Liao, 2013), the interest in the reverse service supply chain (RSSC) is more recent and nascent in nature (Amini et al, 2005;Bienstock et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards conceptualizing reverse service supply chains

Ghobadian

Gallear

et al. 2016

Supp Chain Mnagmnt

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Structured Abstract:Purpose -Recognizing the heterogeneity of services, this paper attempts to clarify the characteristics of forward and the corresponding reverse supply chains of different services.Design/methodology/approach -The paper develops a two-dimensional typology matrix, representing four main clusters of services according to the degree of input standardization and the degree of output tangibility. Based on this matrix, we develop a typology and parsimonious conceptual models illustrating the characteristics of forward and the corresponding reverse supply chains of each cluster of services. Research limitations/implications -The findings of this research can help future researchers to analyse, map and model forward and reverse service supply chains, and to identify potential research gaps in the area.Practical implications -The findings of the research can help managers of service firms to gain better visibility of their forward and reverse supply chains, and refine their business models to help extend their reverse/closed-loop activities. Furthermore, the findings can help managers to better optimize their service operations to reduce service gaps and potentially secure new value-adding opportunities.Originality/value -This paper is the first, to our knowledge, to conceptualize the basic structure of the forward and reverse service supply chains while dealing with the high level of heterogeneity of services.

show abstract

Processes, episodes and events in health service supply chains

Cited by 57 publications

References 27 publications

Managing a variable acute patient flow – categorising the strategies

Managing a variable acute patient flow – categorising the strategies

Managing Variable Patient Flows at Hospitals

Towards conceptualizing reverse service supply chains

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About