Inventory Management Applications for Healthcare Supply Chains

Recently, the healthcare industry has started using inventory management applications to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in its supply chains. There is a rapid growth in the demand of drugs and diagnostic systems within the healthcare industry. The biggest challenge for health care supply chains is to manage inventory efficiently and keep up the satisfactory service level at the same time. In order to meet the increased demand of healthcare products, healthcare supply chain professionals must find efficient and effective ways to improve and optimize inventory. Moreover, perishability and disposability of many medical products have been major problems in healthcare supply chain management. The current managerial practices and conflicts among different stakeholders in health care supply chains are directly associated with the issue of inventory management. This literature review will introduce various inventory management applications that are mainly focused on minimizing inventory costs and increasing overall efficiency in healthcare supply chains. Throughout this literature review, the uses of simulation, new technologies to track healthcare products, new managerial practices, optimization, and information sharing techniques have been discussed extensively. This review of literature contributes to the research field through providing one of the first comprehensive studies to address effectively managing inventory items in healthcare supply chains.