Purpose This paper aims to explore avenue where suppliers and manufacturers are aligned with health-care providers to improve supply chain visibility. Supply chain finance is explored to link suppliers/manufacturers with health-care providers. Design/methodology/approach Existing literature on supply chain visibility in health care forms a basis to achieve the study purpose. Alignment calls also for financial health where supply chain partners’ working capital is readily available to execute joint supply chain plan. Findings There is a disjoint in supply chain alliance between suppliers/manufacturers and providers where providers are unable to trace the origin of supplies. Quality care suffers and cost of care rises as providers search for supplies on an emergency basis. This paper provides a framework where solution can be formulated. Research limitations/implications Suppliers/manufactures form a direct strategic alliance with providers where product visibility enables health-care providers with a better patient management with lower cost of supplies. Inventory management and logistics cost will be lowered as better planning/forecasting is in place. This paper does not call for testing any hypothesis. Perhaps, next move along this line will be to investigate financial health of supply chain partners based on supplier relationship management practices. Originality/value This paper proposes health-care supply chain as an alternative solution to achieve the following twin purposes: controlling the cost while improving quality of care through supply chain finance. As far as we know, this study is the first attempt to achieve the goals.

中文翻译：

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从提供商的角度来看，在医疗保健领域成功实施供应链的框架

目的本文旨在探索供应商和制造商与医疗保健提供者保持一致以改善供应链可见性的途径。探索了供应链融资，以将供应商/制造商与医疗保健提供者联系起来。设计/方法/方法有关卫生保健中供应链可见性的现有文献构成实现研究目的的基础。一致性还要求财务健康，供应链合作伙伴的营运资金可随时用于执行联合供应链计划。调查结果供应商/制造商与供应商之间的供应链联盟脱节，供应商无法追踪供应来源。由于提供者在紧急情况下寻找物资，因此优质护理会受到影响，护理成本也会增加。本文提供了可以制定解决方案的框架。研究局限性/意义供应商/制造商与供应商形成直接的战略联盟，产品可视性使医疗保健提供者能够以更低的供应成本更好地管理患者。随着更好的计划/预测的到位，库存管理和物流成本将降低。本文不要求检验任何假设。也许，沿着这条线的下一步将是基于供应商关系管理实践来调查供应链合作伙伴的财务状况。原创性/价值本文提出了医疗保健供应链，作为实现以下双重目的的替代解决方案：控制成本，同时通过供应链融资改善医疗质量。据我们所知，这项研究是实现目标的首次尝试。