title: A hybrid approach for integrated healthcare cooperative purchasing and supply chain configuration.
abstract: This paper presents an innovative and flexible approach for recommending the number, size and composition of purchasing groups, for a set of hospitals willing to cooperate, while minimising their shared supply chain costs. This approach makes the financial impact of the various cooperation alternatives transparent to the group and the individual participants, opening way to a negotiation process concerning the allocation of the cooperation costs and gains. The approach was developed around a hybrid Variable Neighbourhood Search (VNS)/Tabu Search metaheuristic, resulting in a flexible tool that can be applied to purchasing groups with different characteristics, namely different operative and market circumstances, and to supply chains with different topologies and atypical cost characteristics. Preliminary computational results show the potential of the approach in solving a broad range of problems.
authors.affiliation: INESC TEC (formerly INESC Porto)/Escola de Economia e Gestão, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057, Braga, Portugal, nazare@eeg.uminho.pt.
authors.forename: Nazaré
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rego
authors.forename: João
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Claro
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pinho de Sousa
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003363:Cost Control; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated; D004865:Equipment and Supplies, Hospital; D017754:Group Purchasing / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017146:Models, Organizational; D008962:Models, Theoretical