Research On Healthcare-product Supply Chain Management With A Group Purchasing Organization

To solve the problem of unreasonable high price of medicine,unbearable expenses on medicine,our government has introduced a series of policies for medical reform.Among them,the Group Purchasing Organization(GPO)has exposed many problems while achieving great results.Therefore,through the supply chain modeling,game theory and relative contract,research on the performance,influencing factors and relevant policies of healthcare-product supply chain with a GPO is of practical significance.This paper investigates the healthcare-product supply chain with a GPO with game theory and related contract to study the supply chain equilibrium and influencing factors under different circumstances.Coordinate contracts are designed when the supply chain cannot coordinate under decentralized decision.The main research contents and related results are as follows:(1)Based on the Shenzhen GPO,a healthcare-product supply chain model with a monopoly GPO is established.The conclusion is obtained by analyzing the model equilibrium.First,the premise that a monopoly GPO can reduce the purchase cost of hospitals is that the GPO is non-profit and the unit pur-chase cost is lower than a certain level.Second,the conspiracy between manufacturers and GPO will increase the operational pressure of GPO.Third,the price reduction control of administrative means cannot guarantee the best results.Fourth,profitable GPOs have encroached on the reasonable profits of manufacturers because of their monopoly status.At this time,introducing multiple profitable GPOs to compete with each other can solve this problem.Finally,the relevant conclusions are verified by numerical examples.(2)Based on the "4+7" procurement model derived from Shanghai GPO,a healthcare-product supply chain model with a GPO under two-stage procurement is established.The conclusion is obtained by the equilibrium analysis of the model.First,the optimal decision of the hospital depends on its unit bargaining cost in the second stage.When the cost exceeds a certain threshold,the hospital is better to purchase more through the GPO.When the cost is below a certain threshold,the hospital is better to purchase more in the second stage.Second,given the purchase volume in the first stage of hospitals,the manufacturer in the GPO catalog have no incentive to offer a lower discounted bid.Third,when the manufacturer’s unit cost is the same,manufacturers who actively join the GPO can get more profit.Fourth,when the hospital chooses to purchase as much as possible in the second phase to reduce costs,which causes the overall cost of the supply chain rises,if the contract administration fee rate is lower than a certain level,the manufacturer in the GPO catalog can coordinate the supply chain with a fixed revenue back contract.Finally,the relevant conclusions are verified by numerical examples.(3)Based on the policy of market-oriented GPO in future,a healthcare-product supply chain model with market-oriented GPO was established.The conclusion is obtained by the equilibrium analysis of the model.First,a profitable GPO can also reduce hospitals’ total purchasing costs,and improve the overall welfare of the supply chain.Second,under the wholesale price contract,the contract administration fee does not affect the profit between manufacturer and GPO.Third,the unit purchase cost of the GPO does not affect the profit of the GPO,while it only has a negative impact on the profit of the manufacturer.Fourth,even if hospitals do not generate unit procurement cost when purchasing through GPO,hospitals’efforts to reduce unit procurement costs can also reduce its real costs.Fifth,when the larger hospital chooses not to buy from the GPO to reduce costs,which causes the overall cost of the supply chain rises,if the contract administration fee rate is lower than a certain level,the manufacturer can coordinate the supply chain with a fixed revenue back contract.Finally,the relevant conclusions are verified by numerical examples.(4)Based on the market-oriented GPO,a supply chain model with GPO under asymmetric information is established.Through the equilibrium analysis of the model,it is concluded that the influence of information asymmetry on supply chain performance is affected by the size relationship between model parameters;when the manufacturer underestimates the GPO cost,the overall performance of the supply chain will deteriorate,but at this time GPO will share cost information due to reduced profits and then eliminates the negative impact of information asymmetry;when manufacturers overestimate GPO costs,the overall performance of the supply chain remains the same,and profits are only transferred from manufacturers to GPO.In short,different GPOs all can achieve the effect of reducing drug costs and improve the overall welfare of supply chain under certain conditions.When GPO’s contract administration fee is lower than a certain level,manufacturer in GPO menu can coordinate the supply chain through a fixed revenue back contract.The negative impact of GPO cost information asymmetry on the supply chain will be solved by the GPO’s active sharing of information.Relevant policies should be implemented in accordance with the characteristics of different GPO models to achieve the effect of price reduction and control.