Logistics outsourcing assessment in centralized healthcare supply network.

The purpose of the present research is to explore the current state and future expectations concerning the possibility to whether self-manage or outsource logistics operations in centralized healthcare networks and to analyze and quantify the relationships between logistics outsourcing, costs and performances. Academy and practice greatly meet in this work, since the paper is based on an in-depth study of a local Italian healthcare network. The data were collected using interviews, documentation and observations among hospital pharmacies, wards and public information available on the web. A system dynamic simulation followed by a sensitivity analysis is used to investigate the impact of changing key variables as well as logistic provider quotations. While there are numerous studies on logistics outsourcing within many industries, literature is scarce when it comes to the healthcare sector, probably due to the great changes this sector has faced lately: thus, the paper quantitative findings should be seen as a first attempt in assisting make or buy decision process toward a sustainable healthcare sector development.