HEALTH CARE SUPPLY CHAIN PRACTICES: THE CASE OF HOSPITALS IN SAUDI ARABIA

This paper describes the operationalization of a deeper approach to learning during the development and delivery of the undergrad course in Business Administration. The pedagogy and curriculum for the course was informed by the principles of action learning and experiential learning. Specifically, the course was designed to foster deep learning through the planning and implementing of a research project based on finding opportunities to improve performance in the Saudi Arabian context.

Action learning was used to link the world of learning with the world of action through a reflective process within the action learning set. Experiential learning was used through the continuous four-stage learning process of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. The project developed by the action learning set, is to examine the performance of private and public hospitals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as key members of the supply chain.

In an effort to retain Saudi nationals, who often go overseas when requiring medical care, the government has plans to open new world-class hospitals and medical centres over the near future. The Ministry of Education has announced plans to establish medical colleges and hospitals for all of the country’s 24 government universities. Whilst these are educational hospitals, the plan is for these establishments to provide medical services for patients in the same area. Hospitals, as asserted by Sengupta et al. (2006), should focus on management of capacity, resource flexibility, information flow, service performance and cash flow management in order to positively impact both operational and financial performance.

This research is motivated by the significant economic importance of the health and wellness sector in Saudi Arabia, which needs to be modeled, understood and managed. The research project involves conceptualizing the key driving operational factors upstream and downstream the Saudi Arabian service supply chain and proposes and tests a model that is founded on supply chain related constructs such as organizational performance, access, affordability, awareness and supply chain practices to inform the demand for medical service in Saudi Arabia. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) will be used in an expected sample of a minimum of 150 respondents from private and public hospitals and clinics around the country. The survey instrument is directed to public and private hospital managers and operational staff to test and estimate the causal relations dependence between exogenous and endogenous variables