Unlocking key drivers and potentials of supply chain integration on influencing the availability of health commodities

Résumé

Supply chain integration (SCI) is crucial for healthcare facilities in ensuring the availability of health commodities, as it connects actors of the chain to improve efficiency and effectiveness while ensuring a win-win situation. To have an effective SCI, the study identifies strategies to achieve it and improve the availability of health commodities. The study utilized institutional theory and the resource-based view to analyze new SCI impact pathways; future studies can analyze using different theoretical lenses and frameworks. The study focused on the downstream level of health commodities, surveying healthcare workers’ perceptions. This cross-sectional study involved 119 public healthcare centers in Tanzania, where healthcare workers were sampled using multi-stage sampling to answer the questionnaire in hand. The key results of the partial least structural equation modelling show that organizational resources are a key driver of integration. Organizational resources exerted a favorable influence on SCI (β = 0.834, p < 0.001), but professional norms had a negative effect. Conversely, professional norms showed a significant negative relationship with integration (β = -0.532, p < 0.001), as supply chain integration was found to be a major driver of the availability of health commodities (β = 0.984, p = 0.002). Mediation study indicated that SCI mediated the influence of professional norms and regulatory frameworks on commodity availability, with regulation enhancing and professional norms obstructing access. The impact of industrial practices and organizational resources was negligible when mediated by Supply Chain Integration (SCI). The findings provide a roadmap for healthcare facilities, policymakers, and regulators to proactively address commodity supply tensions and improve public healthcare facilities’ resources and capabilities, enabling them to initiate an effective SCI to improve the availability of health commodities. By reframing the solution to health commodity availability, the study suggests new opportunities arising from SCI implementation and new responsibilities for different healthcare stakeholders. This research offers (1) a comparative analysis of different antecedents of SCI, and (2) a clear understanding of SCI and how it affects the availability of health commodities. The study recommends a shift in improving the resource capacity of the healthcare centers to allow them to fully integrate as a means of improving the availability of health commodities, while keeping the regulatory frameworks at minimum.