A Key Driver of Patient Satisfaction: Interaction of Patients with Personnel Delivering Incontinence Health Technologies

Primary care represents an answer to the growing demand of an ageing population for healthcare services outside the hospital. As a support mechanism of primary care, the distribution of health technologies to chronic patients plays an important role, but it has been investigated from the operational viewpoint only, ignoring the patient's perspective. We explored patient's satisfaction in relation to the distribution processes of incontinence health technologies, investigating its antecedents and isolating the factors driving the satisfaction of patients – which could be leveraged to design better distribution processes for better primary care services. We performed a survey study on 650 patients in primary care services affected by incontinence in Italy, building on the ServQual and Kano models. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) with Multi-Group Analysis (MGA) was adopted to analyse the data. Results show that interaction of patients with the personnel delivering the service is the key driver of patient satisfaction: this is an element more important than the operational features of distribution services (such as punctuality/reliability of the service or its flexibility).

Blurred lines: the timeline of supply chain resilience strategies in the grocery industry in the time of Covid-19

To anticipate, adapt and respond to, and recover from disruptions, firms need to enhance supply chain (SC) resilience. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 represented a unique opportunity to investigate it empirically. This study focuses on the exploration of the resilience strategies adopted to deepen their temporal characteristics and contribute to developing the current understanding of proactivity and reactivity, something that needs to be further investigated. Multiple-case study research was conducted considering 21 Italian companies in the grocery industry. Results show that with the outbreak of the pandemic, companies adopted a set of 21 strategies that spanned five resilience categories: redundancy, flexibility, agility, collaboration, and innovation. To explain the temporal characteristics of the identified resilience strategies we propose an original taxonomy that elaborates the previous theory by introducing two new dimensions related to the strategies’ timing (“when?” and “how long?”). Each dimension can be complemented with other sub-dimensions that explain the design and activation of resilience strategies, and their utilisation and availability. The proposed taxonomy broadens the narrow view offered by existing research on the temporal dimension of resilience, as multiple layers are needed to disentangle the temporal characteristics of different strategies. It also provides an original viewpoint on interpreting the strategies’ proactivity or reactivity as their boundary is increasingly blurred. Lastly, the study opens up to future investigations of the antecedents of the design and utilisation/activation of resilience strategies, as companies could rethink their managerial decisions based on the continuous evolution of their operating environment.

Literature review of managerial levers in primary care

PURPOSE

This study aims to analyze the managerial levers previously considered in literature in the setting of the provision of primary care and community services (in particular for patients with long-term conditions being treated also at home) as well as those scarcely explored that could potentially be adopted in the future.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

This study was a structured literature review. The authors retrieved papers, published from 2005-2020, from electronic databases (i.e. ABI/INFORM Complete, Jstor, PubMed and Scopus). Each selected paper was assigned to a framework category, and a thematic analysis was performed.

FINDINGS

Topics scarcely explored in literature were related to logistics/supply chain, economic evaluations, performance management and customer satisfaction. Some papers embraced more than one management topic, confirming the multidisciplinary nature of territorial healthcare services. The majority of research, however, focused on only one aspect of primary care services, and a lack of an integrated view regarding the provision of those services emerged.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

This study represents a first attempt to rationalize the fragmented body of knowledge on the topic of the provision of primary and community care services. This study enabled some light to be shed on the managerial levers already explored previously in literature and also identifies a number of trajectories for future research.

Is environmental sustainability a strategic priority for logistics service providers?

Despite an increasing number of third-party logistics service providers (3PLs) regard environmental sustainability as a key area of management, there is still great uncertainty on how 3PLs implement environmental strategies and on how they translate green efforts into practice. Through a multiple case study analysis, this paper explores the environmental strategies of a sample of medium-sized 3PLs operating in Italy and the UK, in terms of environmental organizational culture, initiatives, and influencing factors. Our analysis shows that, notwithstanding environmental sustainability is generally recognised as a strategic priority, a certain degree of diversity in the deployment of environmental strategies still exists. This paper is original since the extant literature on green strategies of 3PLs provides findings predominantly from a single country perspective and mainly investigates large/multinational organizations. It also provides indications to help managers of medium-sized 3PLs in positioning their business. This is particularly meaningful in the 3PL industry, where medium-sized organizations significantly contribute to the generated turnover and market value.

Benchmarking of health technologies distribution models

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to develop a benchmarking framework for assessing the performance of the distribution models adopted by the local branches of National Health Services (NHSs) for delivering health technologies to patients at a local level, and to derive prescriptions for enhancing design and optimal management of the distribution models.

Design/methodology/approach

– The authors focussed the study on the distribution of absorbent devices for incontinence, adopting the analytic hierarchy process as a tool for developing the benchmarking framework. The authors applied the framework to the context of the Italian NHS with respect to the Lombard Local Health Authorities, assessing their performance in terms of operational efficiency and service quality.

Findings

– The developed framework constitutes a novel contribution, and it allows for generating prescriptions. Through its application to the context studied the authors found that a “one-size-fits-all” distribution model cannot be proposed, as regards both efficiency and effectiveness, since process standardization does not provide benefits or savings in all contexts. Rather, a total landed cost approach in the evaluation of the distribution practices must be adopted.

Practical implications

– This paper offers to managers and decision makers an innovative approach to the design of distribution models for health technologies. It provides policy makers with prescriptions to develop regulations fostering a comprehensive view of the factors for an optimal health technologies distribution at a local level.

Originality/value

– Given the dearth of scientific publications focussed on the distribution at the local level of health technologies, this paper significantly contributes to the existing body of knowledge and it offers an innovative framework which can be proficiently replicated in manifold contexts.