TITLE: HOSPITAL PURCHASE PORTFOLIO MODEL.
Hospital purchasing. Purchasing portfolio model. Purchasing Management. Agency theory. Physicians preference items.
ospital’s purchasing management deals with different item categories. These categories, due to their nature of supply, demand and technological knowledge, affect buyer’s rationality. Considering the criteria and strategies for purchasing intrinsic to hospital’s context, the present study aims to propose a hospital purchasing portfolio model to classify purchasing items. Conflicting interests within hospital supply chain actors are discussed based on Agency Theory. In the methodological aspect, the study uses qualitative and quantitative approaches. A systematic literature review (RSL) was performed to identify the criteria and strategies used in hospital’s purchasing decision process. The criteria, derived from RSL, were assessed through an online survey with 39 purchasing managers from large private hospitals in the southern, southeastern and northeastern regions of Brazil. Data were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA) validating eleven criteria (lead-time, cost, reputation, negotiation, monopoly, volume, customization, storage, assistance, physician’s preference and knowledge). The latent variables from PCA formed the dimensions of the proposed model: universal purchasing parameters; dependence on supply; and knowledge asymmetry. The model was applied in a large private hospital, analyzing a sample of twelve hospital purchasing items. On the item classification step, the Fuzzy-TOPSIS method was used. Of the twelve items in the sample, two were classified in the “non-critical” category, two in “leverage”, two in “bottleneck”, three in “strategic” and three in “critical”. The result was validated by hospital purchasing managers. A sensitivity analysis attested the robustness of the model.