Advanced services in hospital logistics in the German health service sector

Decision-makers in hospital management are currently facing the challenge of improving hospital services with respect to the equity, efficiency, costs and quality of health care. This entails ensuring that the required resources are available at each point of care while taking qualitative and economic criteria into consideration. Hospital decision-makers have certain priorities regarding the supply of resources to the different departments of a hospital, and the question is as follows: What are the developmental options to expand the current capabilities of the hospital contract logistics service providers on the basis of the priorities of the decision-makers in the German hospital sector? Therefore, it is necessary to identify the different needs and perspectives of the hospital, the management and the health professionals. Additionally, factors important for the design of supply chains provided by external contractors need to be identified and possible further developments described. Structured interviews with German hospital management and logistics service providers were carried out as part of a long-term study from 2004 to 2010. The demands, aims and strategies of both the providers and customers were a particular focus. It was found that the wide range of different goods supplied and the various hospital objectives require different varieties of logistics services design. It also became clear that particularly logistics fields seen by the management as having middle-to-low priority are contracted out. At the same time, external contracted logistics service providers also strive to offer a wide range of comprehensive services.