scholarly journals Effective Demand Forecasting in Health Supply Chains: Emerging Trend, Enablers, and Blockers

Logistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Lakshmy Subramanian

Health supply chains aim to improve access to healthcare, and this can be attained only when health commodities appropriate to the health needs of the global population are developed, manufactured, and made available when and where needed. The weak links in the health supply chains are hindering the access of essential healthcare resulting in inefficient use of scarce resources and loss of lives. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and demand forecasting is one of the weakest links of health supply chains. Also, many of the existing bottlenecks in supply chains and health systems impede the accurate forecasting of demand, and without the ability to forecast demand with certainty, the stakeholders cannot plan and make commitments for the future. Forecasts are an important feeder for budgeting and logistics planning. Under this backdrop, the study examines how improved forecasting can lead to better short-term and long-term access to health commodities and outlines market-related risks. It explores further how incentives are misaligned creating an uneven distribution of risks, leading to the inability to match demand and supply. For this purpose, a systematic literature review was performed, analyzing 71 articles from a descriptive and content approach. Findings indicate the emerging trends in global health and the consequences of inaccurate demand forecasting for health supply chains. The content analysis identifies key factors that can pose a varying degree of risks for the health supply chain stakeholders. The study highlights how the key factors emerge as enablers and blockers, depending on the impact on the overall health supply chains. The study also provides recommendations for actions for reducing these risks. Consequently, limitations of this work are presented, and opportunities are identified for future lines of research. Finally, the conclusion confirms that by adopting a combination of approaches, stakeholders can ensure better information sharing, identify avenues of diversifying risks, and understand the implications.


2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles I Jones

What explains the enormous differences in incomes across countries? This paper returns to two old ideas: linkages and complementarity. First, linkages between firms through intermediate goods deliver a multiplier similar to the one associated with capital in a neoclassical growth model. Because the intermediate goods share of output is about one-half, this multiplier is substantial. Second, just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, problems along a production chain can sharply reduce output under complementarity. These forces considerably amplify distortions to the allocation of resources, bringing us closer to understanding large income differences across countries.(JEL: D57, E23, O1O, O47)



2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-33
Author(s):  
I. Y. Stronskyi ◽  
◽  
M. R. Simonov ◽  
Y. S. Stronskyi ◽  
M. M. Akymyshyn ◽  
...  

The quality and safety of pork is influenced by many factors before and after slaughter. Complex of biochemical and physicochemical processes take place in the maturation of the meat. One of the key factors that affect the quality of meat from slaughtered animals is the level of cortisol in the blood, because glucocorticoid hormone is the trigger for the development of a chain of stress biochemical reactions. This paper contains results of examination of the blood concentration of cortisol and lactate and meat pH. Samples were taken in two animal groups. The first one constituted of industrially reared and slaughtered animals, and the other group consisted of animals grown and slaughtered on small farms. In the blood of industrially reared pigs in comparison with domestic animals, the concentration of cortisol is significantly higher by 39.9% (P˂0.05), as well as the level of lactate — 2.3-fold (P˂0.01). The main reason is due to the stress experienced by animals during transportation and pre-slaughter handling. There is a marked difference between the maximum and the minimum plasma level of cortisol in pigs within one group. Under stress the breakdown of glucose and glycogen in the liver and muscles took place in anaerobic condition with formation of lactate. At 1, 24 and 48 hours of pork meat maturation in case of industrial rearing and slaughtering, compared to domestic, the pH of meat was lower. Obtained results gives the possibility to suggest the lower quality of the industrially reared and slaughtered pork compared with domestic.



2018 ◽  
pp. 125-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Drobyshevsky ◽  
P. V. Trunin ◽  
A. V. Bozhechkova

The paper studies the factors of secular stagnation. Key factors of long-term slowdown in economic growth include the slowdown of technological development, aging population, human capital accumulation limits, high public debt, creative destruction process violation etc. The authors analyze key theoretical aspects of long-term stagnation and study the impact of these factors on Japanies economy. The authors conclude that most of the factors have significant influence on the Japanese economy for recent decades, but they cannot explain all dynamics. For Russia, on the contrary, we do not see any grounds for considering the decline in the economy since 2013 as an episode of secular stagnation.



2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (13) ◽  
pp. 1363-1368
Author(s):  
Krisztina B. Gecse ◽  
Christianne J. Buskens

Despite changing medical paradigm, still a significant proportion of patients with IBD require surgery. The patient's general condition, including nutritional status and the use of immunosuppressive medications is of great importance with regard to surgical complications, as well as the choice of optimal surgical strategy. The indication and the timing of surgery are key factors for the multidisciplinary management of IBD patients. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview on the impact of medical treatment on surgical strategies in IBD.



2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edmund W. J. Lee ◽  
Han Zheng ◽  
Htet Htet Aung ◽  
Megha Rani Aroor ◽  
Chen Li ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Promoting safety and health awareness and mitigating risks are of paramount importance to companies in high-risk industries. Yet, there are very few studies that have synthesized findings from existing online workplace safety and health literature to identify what are the key factors that are related to (a) safety awareness, (b) safety risks, (c) health awareness, and (d) health risks. OBJECTIVE As one of the first systematic reviews in the area of workplace health and safety, this study aims to identify the factors related to safety and health awareness as well as risks, and systematically map these factors within three levels: organizational, cultural, and individual level. Also, this review aims to assess the impact of these workplace safety and health publications in both academic (e.g., academic databases, Mendeley, and PlumX) and non-academic settings (e.g., social media platform). METHODS The systematic review was conducted in line with procedures recommended by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). First, Proquest, ScienceDirect and Scopus were identified as suitable databases for the systematic review. Second, after inputting search queries related to safety and health awareness and risks, the articles were evaluated based on a set of inclusion and exclusion criteria. Third, the factors identified in the included articles were coded systematically. Fourth, the research team assessed the impact of the articles through a combination of traditional and new metric analysis methods: citation count, Altmetric Attention Score, Mendeley readers count, usage count, and capture count. RESULTS Out of a total of 4,831 articles retrieved from the three databases, 51 articles were included in the final sample and were systematically coded. The results revealed six categories of organizational (management commitment, management support, organizational safety communication, safety management systems, physical work environment, and organizational environment), two cultural (interpersonal support and organizational culture), and four individual (perception, motivation, attitude and behavior) level factors that relate to safety and health awareness and risk. In terms of impact, the relationship between citation count and the various metrics measuring academic activity (e.g., Mendeley readers, usage count, and capture count) were mostly significant while the relationship between citation count and Altmetric Attention Score was non-significant. CONCLUSIONS This study provides a macro view of the current state of workplace safety and health research and gives scholars an indication on some of the key factors of safety and health awareness and risks. Researchers should also be cognizant that while their work may receive attention from the scholarly community, it is important to tailor their communication messages for the respective industries they are studying to maximize the receptivity and impact of their findings. CLINICALTRIAL N.A.



Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta

The chapter on Poland focuses on two questions. Why, in contrast to all other state-socialist countries, did the church’s capacity for integration actually increase rather than decrease despite persecution and discrimination during the communist period? And why has this capacity also remained more or less constant (albeit to a lesser extent) in the period since the end of communist rule? The authors have identified four key factors in the remarkable resistance of the Polish Catholic Church during the period of communist persecution: the fusion of religious and national values, the specific conflict dynamics of the church’s struggle with the state, the structural conservatism of agricultural production in Poland, and the actions of Pope John Paul II. Explanations for the surprising stability of religiosity in Poland after 1990 point to the behaviour of the Church itself, to the internal pluralization of Catholicism, and to the impact of a homogeneous religious culture.



2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Batyrbek Alimkhanuly ◽  
Joon Sohn ◽  
Ik-Joon Chang ◽  
Seunghyun Lee

AbstractRecent studies on neural network quantization have demonstrated a beneficial compromise between accuracy, computation rate, and architecture size. Implementing a 3D Vertical RRAM (VRRAM) array accompanied by device scaling may further improve such networks’ density and energy consumption. Individual device design, optimized interconnects, and careful material selection are key factors determining the overall computation performance. In this work, the impact of replacing conventional devices with microfabricated, graphene-based VRRAM is investigated for circuit and algorithmic levels. By exploiting a sub-nm thin 2D material, the VRRAM array demonstrates an improved read/write margins and read inaccuracy level for the weighted-sum procedure. Moreover, energy consumption is significantly reduced in array programming operations. Finally, an XNOR logic-inspired architecture designed to integrate 1-bit ternary precision synaptic weights into graphene-based VRRAM is introduced. Simulations on VRRAM with metal and graphene word-planes demonstrate 83.5 and 94.1% recognition accuracy, respectively, denoting the importance of material innovation in neuromorphic computing.



2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joao Gabriel Rosa Ramos ◽  
Sandra Cristina Hernandes ◽  
Talita Teles Teixeira Pereira ◽  
Shana Oliveira ◽  
Denis de Melo Soares ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Clinical pharmacists have an important role in the intensive care unit (ICU) team but are scarce resources. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of on-site pharmacists on medical prescriptions in the ICU. Methods This is a retrospective, quasi-experimental, controlled before-after study in two ICUs. Interventions by pharmacists were evaluated in phase 1 (February to November 2016) and phase 2 (February to May 2017) in ICU A (intervention) and ICU B (control). In phase 1, both ICUs had a telepharmacy service in which medical prescriptions were evaluated and interventions were made remotely. In phase 2, an on-site pharmacist was implemented in ICU A, but not in ICU B. We compared the number of interventions that were accepted in phase 1 versus phase 2. Results During the study period, 8797/9603 (91.6%) prescriptions were evaluated, and 935 (10.6%) needed intervention. In phase 2, there was an increase in the proportion of interventions that were accepted by the physician in comparison to phase 1 (93.9% versus 76.8%, P < 0.001) in ICU A, but there was no change in ICU B (75.2% versus 73.9%, P = 0.845). Conclusion An on-site pharmacist in the ICU was associated with an increase in the proportion of interventions that were accepted by physicians.



2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6372
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Varriale ◽  
Antonello Cammarano ◽  
Francesca Michelino ◽  
Mauro Caputo

The digital transformation of supply chains should revolutionize entire management processes and improve various aspects of sustainability. In particular, the plans of Industry 4.0 aim towards a digitization of several procedures by exploiting emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, RFID and blockchain. The purpose of this study is to highlight how order and disruption events processes can be improved with the adoption of emerging technologies and how this reflects on the improvement of sustainability aspects. The study is based on the comparison of two simulation scenarios between three actors in the cheese supply chain. In particular, a first traditional scenario “as is” is simulated without the use of new technologies and is compared to a second scenario “to be” that adopts IoT, RFID and blockchain. The results show an improvement in time performance for managing both perfect and non-compliant orders. The developed framework highlights the impact of new technologies on sustainability aspects, showing further managerial implications.



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