Performance assessment of healthcare warehouses: An empirical approach

Healthcare (HC) warehouses play a pivotal role in providing a satisfactory service level for hospitals. In fact, the warehouse performance significantly affects the treatment of patients by supplying drugs and other medical products in the right place at the right time with the right quantity and quality. Therefore, performance assessment of HC warehouses leads to making the right strategy for improving them. Current literature highlights a lack of approaches comparing and contrasting logistics performance in different HC warehouses. However, recognizing and categorizing warehouses based on their performance similarities offers the advantage of better managing them with the selection of proper fitting strategies. In this manner, the decisions would be made according to the specific characteristics of each warehouse group to improve efficiency. In the present study, key performance indicators for HC warehouses are extracted from literature and semi-structured interviews with HC logistics professionals. Using an empirical approach, the data related to the performance of several warehouse are collected from a set of Italian HC institutions. Afterwards, the statistical tool named cluster analysis is applied for the classification of the investigated warehouses based on their logistics behaviour. This results in a specific analysis of the current state of each cluster. The cluster analysis outcomes are verified based on some demand and flow indicators. The proposed approach may stimulate further research about comprehensive performance assessments of HC logistics systems. Additionally, it provides HC decision-makers with a methodology giving valuable insights for the development of integrated strategies based on the actual logistics characteristics of warehouses. Future research could be conducted by considering a more complete set of variables with different levels of contribution to the overall logistics performance. Finally, the presented approach will be further tested in multiple HC settings.