Affiliations: [a]
Institute for Health Care Delivery Science, Mount Sinai Health System, New York, NY, USA
| [b]
Department of Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA
| [c]
Harvard Medical School Postgraduate Education, Boston, MA, USA
| [d]
Center for Nursing Research and Innovation, Mount Sinai Health System, New York, NY, USA
| [e] Supply Chain, Mount Sinai Health System, New York, NY, USA
| [f] Biostatistics Core, Tisch Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Health System, New York, NY, USA
Correspondence:
[*]
Address for correspondence: Ksenia Gorbenko, One Gustave L. Levy Place, Box 1077, New York, NY 10029, USA. E-mail: ksenia.gorbenko@mssm.edu; ORCID 0000-0003-1010-2257.
Note: [1] First and second authors contributed equally.
Abstract: BACKGROUND:No studies have examined how health care mergers and acquisitions affected the hospital supply chain and its employees since the passing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. OBJECTIVE:To describe the barriers and facilitators of digital transformation in a hospital supply chain from the employee perspective. METHODS:We conducted two rounds of interviews, one year apart, with supply chain employees at an urban academic health system preparing to adopt an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software (N = 11 in Round I and N = 8 in Round II). Two researchers coded transcripts for themes using NVivo 11. RESULTS:We identified the following barriers to technology integration: silos between supply chain groups (e.g. Purchasing, Information Management, Strategic Sourcing), between employees and management, and resulting from prior mergers; focus on short-term problems and fear of change; and lack of transparent communication about upcoming changes. Facilitators of technology integration included motivation to work in supply chain; long-term vision that allowed tolerance of change and positive outlook; and transparent communication. CONCLUSION:Desire for shared leadership among employees emerged as a major theme, indicating the need for active involvement of employees during transition to new integrative technology.
Keywords: Decision making/process, health service, hospital supply chain, ERP, qualitative
