Sourcing and outsourcing decisions for a sustainable healthcare supply chain

Special issue call for papers from Strategic Outsourcing

Deadline for submissions: 30th November 2011

Subject coverage

International healthcare systems are under increasing pressure to reduce waste and eliminate unnecessary costs, while improving the quality and consistency of the care they provide to patients. The EU's Second Health Programme (2008-2013) has recently stressed the urgent need to increase the sustainability of public health systems in the face of important challenges, including the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases (elderly people) and patients' demands for high-quality care and the latest diagnostics and treatments available. With the same pressure, in many other parts of the world Governments are calling for similar initiatives. International experiences demonstrate that the implementation of integrated Supply Chain Management leading practices by public healthcare organizations would yield significant savings (i.e. inefficient and redundant processes reduction) and focus more on the core: the patient care mission. That said, there does not seem to be a single best approach: it is up to each organization to determine the most appropriate strategy and target areas for coping with the peculiar characteristics of the healthcare sector: i.e. the criticality of the service provided to customers, the breadth of products and services purchased, the challenges of law-oriented instead of efficiency-oriented processes, the power of suppliers and the supply network capillarity.

Under this scenario, there is no doubt that outsourcing in the healthcare sector is rapidly gaining popularity among Government, Industry and Academia in both developed and developing countries. Addressing key questions such as "How does outsourcing work in the healthcare sector at present?" and "How should it work in the future?" is of pivotal importance to support current efforts to modernise and optimize the sector and eventually improve the quality of healthcare provision - and consequently, quality of life - in the future.

This special issue of Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal attempts to motivate state-of the-art research in the areas of sustainable procurement and strategic outsourcing in the healthcare sector. This issue will explore how sourcing and outsourcing knowledge today meets, or does not meet, the healthcare sector requirements. We aim to explore outsourcing enablers and barriers typical to the healthcare sector and to discuss the implications of applying outsourcing in terms both of economics and of quality of the service provided. To fulfil this purpose, the present issue aims to combine both strategic and methodological efforts in this field.

Articles covering the following topics are welcome for the special issue (but not limited to):

• Strategic sourcing and outsourcing decisions and practices in the healthcare sector (i.e. outsourcing of facility management and services, outsourcing of HR-services, etc.)
• Business process outsourcing and off-shoring practices in the healthcare setting.
• Shared healthcare supply services, group purchasing organization (GPO), centralized electronic catalogue implementation and
  e-sourcing: opportunities, challenges and leading practices.
• Healthcare supply risk management.
• Make or buy decision processes in the healthcare setting.
• Logistics outsourcing on healthcare supply chain management and the impact of outsourcing of services on healthcare sector sustainability.
• IT sourcing/outsourcing arrangements in the healthcare sector and ICT-services sharing.
• Vendor-Managed Inventory, Consignment Stock and other inventory management policies: opportunities and implications of applying techniques well-known in the operations management field in the healthcare sector.
• Important elements of managing outsourcing arrangements such as service design, disaggregating processes, managing offshore service providers and business process redesign in the healthcare sector.
• The impact of environmental policies and corporate social responsibility requirements on sourcing and outsourcing decisions in healthcare.
• Reverse supply chain management in the healthcare setting: waste management, material recovery and packaging disposal.
  Performance measurement in healthcare business process outsourcing decisions.

Notes for authors

Submitted papers should not have been previously published nor be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Papers should be prepared according to the Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal author guidelines. Manuscripts should be 3,500-7,000 words in length and all contributions will be subject to a double blind review process.

Submission guidelines

All submissions should be made though ScholarOne Manuscripts, following the guidelines below:

Registering on ScholarOne Manuscripts

To submit your paper online you must create an author account:

1. Log on to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/soij
2. Click on the "create account" link at the top right of the screen.
3. Follow the on-screen instructions, filling in the requested details before proceeding
4. Your username will be your e-mail address and you have to input a password of at least eight characters in length and containing two or more numbers
5. Click "Finish" and your account has been created.

Submitting an article on ScholarOne Manuscripts

Once registered, go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/soij with your username and password. This will take you through to the Welcome page. (To consult the Author Guidelines for this journal, click on the Home Page link in the Resources column on the login page).

1. Click on the Author Centre button.
2. Click on the "submit a new manuscript" link, which will take you through to the Manuscript Submission page.
3. Complete all fields and browse to upload your article to the "Sourcing and outsourcing decisions for a sustainable healthcare supply chain: opportunities, challenges and leading practices" special issue.
4. You must upload a minimum of three files -- your article file (with no author details), a separate title page (with all author contact details) and a structured abstract in a word file.
5. When all required sections are completed, preview your .pdf proof.
6. Submit your manuscript.

Guidance can be found on the Emerald ScholarOne Manuscripts Support Centre (http://msc.emeraldinsight.com). If you are unable to find the answer you are looking for, please e-mail: manuscriptcentral@emeraldinsight.com for assistance. When your paper is successfully submitted you will receive an e-mail indicating that your paper has been received together with its unique identity number. If you experience any problems please e-mail: manuscriptcentral@emeraldinsight.com quoting the journal to which you are submitting and your article title.

More author guidelines, along with sample papers and other relevant information for submitting a paper, are available at: www.emeraldinsight.com/so.htm

Guest Editor contact details

Daria Battini
Assistant Professor of Industrial Plants and Logistics
Department of Management and Engineering, University of Padova, Vicenza, 36100, Italy
E-mail: daria.battini@unipd.it

Elkafi Hassini
Associate Professor of Management Science
Operations Management Area, DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University, Ontario, Canada
E-mail: hassini@mcmaster.ca

Vicky Manthou
Professor of Information Systems
Dept. of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia,
Thessaloniki, 54006, Greece
E-mail: manthou@uom.gr