Integrating a Fragmented Pharmacy Network into a Unified Supply Chain System: A Case Study from Qatar's Primary...

Healthcare organizations increasingly rely on digital integration to strengthen pharmaceutical supply chain governance. At the time of this study, Qatar's Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) operated a decentralized pharmacy network without a dedicated internal Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, resulting in fragmented procurement data and limited enterprise-level visibility.

This study aimed to design and implement an enterprise-level data integration and analytics solution to enhance procurement transparency, inventory visibility, and data-informed decision-making across PHCC's pharmacy network.

Guided by a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, a centralized Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) was developed by integrating procurement data extracted from the supplier's ERP system. A Tableau-based analytics dashboard featuring key performance indicators (KPIs) was designed and deployed across 32 pharmacies to support operational monitoring and governance.

The implemented solution enabled real-time visibility of pharmaceutical procurement and inventory performance. Descriptive operational indicators showed a reduction in back-order rates from 6.7% to 4.5% in 2024. Inventory indicators demonstrated an increase in average medication shelf life from 551 to 568 days (3%) and an improved expiry profile, with 96% valid inventory and only 3% very short-expiry items compared with historical levels.

This case study demonstrates how integrating external supplier ERP data into an enterprise data warehouse can enhance visibility, transparency, and decision support in public healthcare systems lacking an internal ERP. The approach provides a scalable and practical model for strengthening pharmaceutical supply chain governance without large-scale ERP implementation.