Measuring Resilience of Healthcare Supply Chains: A Resilience Indicator Classification Proposal

The Healthcare Supply Chain (HSC) plays a vital role in ensuring efficient management of medical supplies and delivering timely, cost-effective healthcare services, ultimately impacting patient care and public health outcomes. Resilience in HSCs is critical, particularly to face socio-demographic shifts, disruptions, and operational failures. To monitor the resilience of HSCs, resilience indicators must be defined. This paper explores indicators used in literature to measure the resilience of supply chains to disruptions and assess which applies to the healthcare supply chain. A preliminary literature review identifies standard methodologies and indicators employed to measure resilience. The findings revealed a lack of healthcare-specific indicators, underscoring the need for further research in this area. The indicators were distinguished between static and dynamic resilience indicators. Additionally, the components of resilience indicators and phases of application were examined, shedding light on areas for improvement and future research directions. While significant progress has been made in understanding and measuring resilience, challenges remain, including real-time monitoring and computational complexity. Addressing these challenges will contribute to the development of effective strategies for enhancing supply chain resilience, particularly in healthcare.