Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: May 4, 2023
Date Accepted: Aug 23, 2023
Drivers and Barriers to Implementing Internet of Things in the Healthcare Supply Chain: Multi-Case Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Over the past two years, COVID-19 has placed enormous pressures on the healthcare industry. On the one hand, there has been an increase in demand and, on the other, a shortage of supplies. This has shown that supply chain management within the healthcare industry cannot be taken for granted. Further, the healthcare industry is also facing other major challenges, such as the current labor market shortage. In the literature, the Internet of Things (IoT) is highlighted as an effective tool to build a more resilient and efficient supply chain that can manage these challenges. Although using IoT in supply chain management has been extensively examined in other types of supply chains, its use in the healthcare supply chain has largely been overlooked. Given that the healthcare supply chain, compared to others, is more complex, and is under growing pressure, a more in-depth understanding of the opportunities brought by IoT is needed.
Objective:
This paper addresses this research gap by identifying and ranking the drivers of, and barriers to, implementing IoT in the healthcare supply chain.
Methods:
This is a two-stage study. In the first, exploratory stage, 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify drivers and barriers. In the, second, confirmatory stage, 26 healthcare supply chain professionals were asked, in a survey, to rank the drivers and barriers.
Results:
The results show that there are multiple financial, operational, strategy-related, and supply-chain-related drivers for implementing IoT. Similarly, there are various financial, strategy-related, supply-chain-related, technology-related, and user-related barriers. The findings also show that supply-chain-related drivers (e.g., increased transparency, traceability, and collaboration with suppliers) are the strongest drivers while financial barriers (e.g., high implementation costs and difficulties in building a business case) are the biggest barriers to overcome.
Conclusions:
The findings of this study add to the limited literature regarding IoT in the healthcare supply chain by empirically identifying the most important drivers and barriers to IoT implementation. The ranking of drivers and barriers provides guidance for practitioners and healthcare provider leaders intending to implement IoT in the healthcare supply chain.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.