Healthcare Supply Chain

Healthcare supply chains are usually long and complex, involving many parties and unique intermediaries, such as a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO), as well as very different products, such as brand and generic products. This chapter presents an extensive review of past research efforts in healthcare supply chains and provides two particular examples. The first example studies the redesign of drug purchasing contracts for generic injectables to mitigate drug shortages. The second example studies the redesign of supply contracts for influenza vaccines to address a mismatch between supply and demand. The chapter presents the models of supply chains for generic injectable drugs and for influenza vaccines, respectively, and characterizes the performance of various supply contracts. It reviews the broad literature on healthcare supply chains, and discusses promising future work and directions. The chapter focuses on ample future research opportunities in healthcare and pharmaceutical supply chains.