Overview
![](/assets/images/picto-drapeau-france-3a76576a5d60a512053b4612ab58dae5.png)
ABSTRACT
Hospital logistics is an essential support function for the proper functioning of a hospital. Without the efficiency of the team, a patient cannot be placed in a bed, fed, receive medication, or even undergo surgery.
A multitude of flows gravitate around the patients and all the medical and nursing staff. They are managed by numerous actors who, thanks to their good coordination, guarantee an optimized management of resources, the health conditions in which they are mobilized, and the overall satisfaction of the hospital actors and patients.
Read this article from a comprehensive knowledge base, updated and supplemented with articles reviewed by scientific committees.
Read the articleAUTHORS
-
Guillaume ECKERLEIN: Director of Purchasing, Logistics and Hotel Quality - University Hospitals of Paris Saclay, Paris, France
-
Nathalie SAMPIERI-TEISSIER: HDR Senior Lecturer in Management Sciences - Aix Marseille Univ, CRET-LOG, Aix-en-Provence, France
INTRODUCTION
Everyone thinks of the famous e-commerce giants, whose business model and success would be nothing without their formidable logistics, enabling customers to receive a product in a matter of hours at the click of a button, without having to leave their homes. Walking along the roads of France, we can also see warehouses taking over our territories, trucks, planes, trains or boats transporting goods from the four corners of the globe. The images associated with this function are often limited to the contexts of industry and distribution, storage and transport. When we think of the hospital, we think first and foremost of care, rarely of the logistics that may be associated with it. Yet the Covid-19 crisis has made us realize that, without logistics, hospitals - and the healthcare system in general - cannot provide care. Shortages of masks or hydro-alcoholic gel, stock-outs or severe pressure on essential medicines were all risks that weighed heavily on the management of the health crisis.
Logistics is often defined as the technology of controlling physical flows by means of information flows, enabling the right product to be positioned at the right time, in the right place and at the right cost. However, logistics is more than just the implementation of a technology; it invites us to rethink organizations in a more cross-functional way, both within and between organizations. We therefore define logistics management as "that component of Supply Chain Management which effectively and efficiently plans, implements and controls the outward and return flows of goods, their storage and services, using associated information, in order to satisfy customer requirements" (CSCMP, Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, 2007).
When applied to the hospital context, logistics actually encompasses a wide range of activities, sometimes far removed from this definition, and closer to industrial activities internalized within organizations, such as laundry, catering or garden maintenance. Without denying the existing links between these activities and the role of a hospital, this article chooses to confine the scope of analysis of hospital logistics to the management of physical flows as envisaged in an industrial context. It also highlights the specific nature of hospital logistics in terms of the presence of patients and the very nature of the services they receive. Indeed, hospital logistics, and all the men and women who make it up, are at the service of the care activity. They must therefore understand the many subtleties involved, whether philosophical (intimacy, free will, caregivers' commitment), technical (we all remember the different types of masks used during the Covid-19 crisis, or the different syringes used during vaccination campaigns) or organizational and...
Exclusive to subscribers. 97% yet to be discovered!
You do not have access to this resource.
Click here to request your free trial access!
Already subscribed? Log in!
![](/assets/images/logo-eti-286623ed91fa802ce039246e516e5852.png)
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference
KEYWORDS
resources | logistic | Healthcare | services to the person | continuous flow | Optimization
This article is included in
Drugs and pharmaceuticals
This offer includes:
Knowledge Base
Updated and enriched with articles validated by our scientific committees
Services
A set of exclusive tools to complement the resources
Practical Path
Operational and didactic, to guarantee the acquisition of transversal skills
Doc & Quiz
Interactive articles with quizzes, for constructive reading
Hospital logistics for caregivers and patients
Bibliography
Directory
Organizations – Federations – Associations (non-exhaustive list)
CSCMP: Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, a professional association of supply chain management professionals and researchers in the USA.
HAS: the French National Authority for Health (HAS) is an independent public scientific...
Exclusive to subscribers. 97% yet to be discovered!
You do not have access to this resource.
Click here to request your free trial access!
Already subscribed? Log in!
![](/assets/images/logo-eti-286623ed91fa802ce039246e516e5852.png)
The Ultimate Scientific and Technical Reference