Health care supply chain design for emerging economies.

Abstract

This dissertation research is motivated by the global mismatch in the supply and demand of quality health care for underserved communities. To begin addressing the identified need for additional health care services in many communities, this dissertation unfolds a design for the health care supply chain. This design is based on the coordination constructs of access, awareness and affordability and will advance our understanding of how to increase the quality and volume of care in underserved communities by connecting the development of care to the delivery of care. The dissertation is comprised of three studies that are designed to: (i) uncover the nature, measurement and relationships between the three mechanisms (affordability, awareness and access) and propose an integrative framework to inform supply chain design for delivering quality health care to underserved communities; (ii) empirically analyze the relationships in the proposed framework and, (iii) extend the framework by examining inter-organizational relationships and roles between partners in the health care supply chain and how they influence the delivery of care. This research was conducted in collaboration with Children's HeartLink, a medical non-profit organization which partners with health care organizations in developing countries around the globe to provide health care services for individuals suffering from congenital heart conditions. The research setting for this study was the First Hospital of Lanzhou University, located in the Gansu province of China.