Pharmaceutical Inventory Management Issues in Hospital Supply Chains

The primary focus of the healthcare sector is to provide patients with the best quality of care. While the healthcare cost is keep on growing, effective healthcare supply chain should be achieved to reduce some unnecessary costs. To address this issue, this study aims to examine inventory management practice in one of Indonesian public hospital and focus on the role of inventory to drive hospital supply chain performance. Three major issues regarding inventory management practice has been identified such as overstock, unjustified forecasting technique and lack of IT support. Proposed (s,Q) policy using continuous review can reduce by 50% total inventory value on hand of oncology medication. Among several forecasting technique that’s presented, Holt’s model appears to be the best adapted for oncology medication. Future study is needed to simulate the outlook condition using proposed policy. By implementing a new inventory policy that cope all the constraints and problems will help hospital to manage its pharmacy inventory in effective and efficient way.