E-business Str@tegy in the Acute Care segment in Europe

Abstract

The European health care industry in general has been rather backwards with e-business implementation compared to other industries. Only a handful of start-up companies have recently initiated trading medical products online. However, it is inevitable that e-business must be offered by the leading health care manufacturers in order to remain competitive. As customers are the kings of businesses today, it is imperative for companies to understand their needs in order to deliver superior service and customer satisfaction. Especially within the supply chain, there are many existing challenges that can be solved using e-business. Through interviews and round table discussions with people from different professions within hospitals, it is obvious that the challenges are plentiful and the perceptions of e-business differ across functions. The deep-rooted and traditional hospital culture makes it even more difficult to gain mutual support for an effective and efficient e-business implementation. Therefore, the solutions that are designed to help the hospitals solve their supply chain challenges must be highly value-added and amenable to all parties. At the company level, the solutions offered will be based more on content and information. Through portals, the solutions could deal more with the transactions and the overall efficiency of the supply chain.