Simulation and modeling efforts to support decision making in healthcare supply chain management

Recently, most healthcare organizations focus their attention on reducing the cost of their supply chain management (SCM) by improving the decision making pertaining processes' efficiencies. The availability of products through healthcare SCM is often a matter of life or death to the patient; therefore, trial and error approaches are not an option in this environment. Simulation and modeling (SM) has been presented as an alternative approach for supply chain managers in healthcare organizations to test solutions and to support decision making processes associated with various SCM problems. This paper presents and analyzes past SM efforts to support decision making in healthcare SCM and identifies the key challenges associated with healthcare SCM modeling. We also present and discuss emerging technologies to meet these challenges.