E-procurement and automatic identification: enhancing supply chain management in the healthcare industry

Abstract

The concepts of automated e-procurement, or electronic B2B (business-to-business) trade, are grounded in the strategic leveraging of both tangible/intangible assets for successful implementation and execution of electronic trade, resulting in significant financial benefits for firms. Some of the major reasons for this growth include significant process savings from automation, compliance, and purchasing advantage; and reduced costs that organisations can experience by conducting transactions electronically. Although these are the basic benefits associated with generic e-commerce strategies, a majority of these B2B transactions have focused on the purchase of indirect materials (especially office products and travel services). In fact, more than 93% of medical supplies on hospital shelves appear to have universal product numbers on them--at least while still in their boxes and there is a great potential for huge savings in e-procurement in the healthcare field. However, other types of supply chain-related purchases, including maintenance, repair, and operating and replacement parts, and direct material purchases, are becoming more important operational management considerations. In addition, several other key considerations are: existing procurement strategy, the vendor, technology, suppliers, and total costs of ownership. Companies need to analyse their current procurement strategy before developing an e-procurement plan.

An interdisciplinary review of digital technologies to facilitate anti-corruption, transparency and accountability in medicines procurement

“…e-procurement strategies integrating automatic data identification and data capture (AIDC) technology and mobile devices could be used to effectively track pharmaceuticals throughout the supply chain and even for patient consumption of pharmaceutical products [28,29]. AIDC consists of a host of different technologies (e.g.…”

“…Though key characteristics of e-procurement systems demonstrate how these systems can be used to increase transparency, enable automation, and integrate other forms of technology, arguably the most important function of an e-procurement system is its ability to generate cost-savings [29]. In fact, an e-procurement system's ability to reduce procurement costs is likely the single most important factor for medicines e-procurement systems adoption [28]. For example, a 2006 review of e-Health interventions in Romania found that e-procurement was used by the Ministry of Health for the acquisition of medicines for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, oncology, nephrology, diabetes, hematology, and psychiatry [30][31][32][33][34].…”

A model to measure e-procurement impacts on organizational performance

“…It has been highlighted that e-Procurement has to be evaluated in its complexity, which encompasses numerous goals: to rationalize expenditure, to reduce "administrative confusion" and costs, to foster operational efficiency (Croom, 2000), to strengthen organizations' network vision and technological collaboration with business partners (Gamble, 1999;Greenemeier, 2000;Murray, 2001), to completely automate certain procurement activities (Smith and Flanegin, 2004;Aisbett, Lasch and Pires, 2005).…”

Stakeholder identification and salience in purchasing: an empirical study from UK hospitals

“…Operational costs are growing while Capital investments have dried up. In the National Health Service (NHS) organisation, purchasing has been identified as one area whose immediate reform can quickly bring benefits (Newhouse, 1992;Smith and Flanegin, 2004;Congressional Budget Office, 2007). Alone, this is bound to fail unless new, innovative approaches to managing resources and novel supply chain practices are adopted.…”