Exploring the effect of relational coordination in indian healthcare supply chain

Abstract

One of the biggest and fastest growing industries is Healthcare Industry. The advancement of technology and increase in patient s expectation demands HealthCare Service Providers (HCSP) to provide Quality and Efficient services to delight and retain the patients. Healthcare supply chain management involves coordination and collaboration with channel partners, suppliers, thirdparty service providers, intermediaries and customers. Coordination of care is foundational to healthcare quality and being identified as a national priority, however fragmentation and uncoordinated care continues to affect healthcare systems. Quality in this context refers how well the HCSP are communicating the medical instructions to the HealthCare Service Seekers (HCSS) and in turn, how they are received in correct sense. It also includes the response of the service providers to the queries raised by the service seekers. Efficiency means the degree of satisfaction obtained by the HCSS during their stay in the hospital and the diagnosis procedure opted by HCSP to cure the diseases/ailments in the data collection pertaining to the health problem in addition to the care and respect shown. Efficiency outcomes shall include the necessary medical facilities provided to the patients for their health disorder and whether they are at par with facilities provided in other hospitals at the same cost. The High performance work practice (HPWP) framework proposed by Gittell received maximum attention of the researchers in Healthcare Systems. Gittell s High Performance Work Practice (HPWP) framework is customised to Indian Healthcare context and named as Modified High Performance Work Practice (MHPWP) framework. The main focus of this study is to determine the effect of RC Relational parameters and RC communication parameters as moderators on improvement of Quality and Efficiency in Indian healthcare organisations. The MHPWP framework model developed is validated using a questionnaire that addresses Quality and Efficiency of the healthcare supply chain