The Growing Role of Procurement in Trade and Manufacturing - Research Paper

Introduction

Procurement refers to buying of goods and services by organizations; hence, a significant amount of expenditure is through the procurement departments in various institutions such as healthcare organizations (Lui, 2018). Procurement, therefore, plays an essential role in trade and manufacturing and availability of goods to the consumers such as medical practitioners hence are vital in the performance of any institution. The existence of procurement grows in volume day in day out as there are increasing business on core competencies, emerging information technology, and globalization of procurement markets (Lui, 2018). In the healthcare system, there has been a lot of emphasizing on the procurement departments as they are core to the healthcare institutions. The healthcare facilities procure and consume a vast range of products that include medical, pharmaceuticals, foods, and building supplies. Incorporation of IT in procurement activities promotes efficient utilization of the available materials and resources, reduces wastage and enables prioritization of products that have low carbon footprints hence creating cost saving, health and environmental benefits (Government of Canada, 2016). Many countries such as Canada have not fully integrated IT in their health care procurement process hence facing many challenges. The current challenges that face the Canadian IT healthcare procurement systems are due to the devolution of the healthcare system in which the sector falls under the direct jurisdiction of each territory and province (Duncan, 2012). The funding to provide for latest technology are not sufficient since the healthcare faces financial challenges in general and gets subsidies via the federal transfer payments, but all the health care services are under the provincial governments whose policies on procurement are outdated and needs reviewing (Mossialos, Wenzl, Osborn & Sarnak, 2016). The Canadian government and all the stakeholders in the health sector need to ensure that the procurement process utilizes current and emerging technological advancements to better manage the patients (Government of Canada, 2016). Therefore, to enable the proper and smooth running of the hospitals, all departments should use new technologies so that one department does not slow down the entire process of patient management. This ensures that the healthcare system will utilize fewer resources on the updated technology as compared to the outdated technology.

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Thesis Statement: The purpose of this article is to discuss the current situation and challenges that face the Canadian IT Healthcare Procurement process and also provide approaches and solutions to tackle these problems to enjoy the benefits of a successful IT healthcare procurement process. The two major problems encountered by the Canadian healthcare procurement programs include; the use of outdated IT infrastructure which leads to wasting of resources and time, lack of technical compliance obligations, and lack of functional, operational and technical specifications. Major solutions that can be recommended for the Canadian healthcare procurement procedure are; use of updated IT technology in healthcare procurement, online procurement system to ensure saving of time and money, fully and clearly defined functional, operational and technical specifications, ensuring technological compliance obligations, among others.

Current Healthcare Status in Canada

The healthcare sector in Canada is experiencing many problems, particularly those that are related to IT utilization in this field. The most significant issues that have been widely experienced in this region include poor procurement processes which lead to the high cost of delivery and increased medical errors, lack of access to modern medical services and long waiting periods for the patients (Bliemel & Hassanein, 2014). The health sector has strived to address these problems by utilizing IT in various procedures such as procurement, but due to numerous factors, there are many challenges. Therefore, there is need to use modern IT to manage the purchase of various supplies in the hospitals to attain operational effectiveness (Duncan, 2012). There are the most important and needed technologies that are required to enable the Canadian health sector to contain costs as well as ensuring improved patient outcomes.

Current Status of the Canadian IT Healthcare Procurement

In Canada, there are many notable technological advancements in the field of healthcare. For instance, by use of IT-enabled systems, patients are now able to see doctors from the comfort of their homes or workplaces through virtual visits, laparoscopic surgeries, among other technology-driven processes (Mossialos et al. 2016). However, numerous challenges face how patients are treated as little attention has been taken to improve the IT healthcare procurement processes. Due to defective procurement procedures, supplies are not always available in stock and ordering of new inventory takes hours as the activities are not fully automated due to lack of utilization of new emerging technologies (Government of Canada, 2016). Therefore, in Canada, these procedures create delays, increases costs, and consequently causes adverse effects to the patient. The main challenges encountered by the Canadian healthcare procurement processes include; the use of outdated IT infrastructure, which leads to wasting of resources and time.

Outdated IT Infrastructure

Due to the use of outdated IT infrastructure in the Canadian healthcare procurement department, various healthcare institutions are not able to get the necessary data that is crucial in the procurement procedure, and those that get the data are not able to translate it to useful information that would aid in procurement (Knight et al. 2012). The IT infrastructure in the Canadian healthcare procurement is outdated and was implemented decades ago hence it has created numerous issues with the standards of data, making it very difficult and impossible to interpret data and information into actionable insights to aid in procurement (Duncan, 2012). This problem is prevalent in Canada as numerous healthcare systems and programs still depend on manual procedures and methods to track the procurement commodities and also approve purchases. Therefore, the manual techniques that are utilized leave a gap and a large room for the occurrence of errors as well as negatively impacting on the care of the patient hence leading to poor patient outcome.

Studies done on the Canadian healthcare procurement tendencies over the past five years have shown that medical personnel spends almost up to twenty-five percent of their working time looking and searching for supplies or even the correct and suitable clinical equipment that their patients need (Mossialos et al. 2016). This time is spent inappropriately as it takes away time that these clinicians are supposed to be attending to the numerous problems presented to them by the patients hence straining the healthcare sector as it puts additional burden on the outcomes of the patients as well as the morale of the healthcare workforce.

Resources and Time Wastage

The outdated Canadian healthcare procurement systems make many health institutions spend a lot of money on non-strategic goods and unmanaged supplies. These systems make the procurement procedure time consuming and expensive since it involves manually managing a large number of suppliers (Duncan, 2012).

Lack of Functional, Operational and Technical Specifications

The procurement of IT procurement infrastructure is expensive and has different structures that are associated with numerous risks (Duncan, 2012). One of the central procurement mistakes that cause challenges in the IT healthcare procurement systems in Canada is the lack of fully and clearly defined procured technology that involves functional, operational and technical specifications and details in the procurement contract (Government of Canada, 2016). These specifications include info that marketing and sales representatives provide to the buyer and the end-result requirements related to patient outcomes or administrative output. The specifications can be complicated hence causing a challenge to the IT procurement as they also include compatibility, interoperability and compatibility requirements for all the other solutions that are necessary thus requiring due diligence on the clinician part.

Lack of Technological Compliance Obligations

In the Canadian IT health care procurement systems, various parties do not comply with the duties and obligations that are set up by healthcare governing and standards bodies such as the Canada's Ministry of Health, Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Provincial and Federal regulations and regulations that relates to privacy, personal information and protection of medical records (Mossialos et al. 2016).

Faulty IT Procurement Process Itself

Flawed procurement process itself is another challenge that is facing Canadian IT health care procurement. Frequently, a health institution's competitive tenders are formulated, prepared, and even actually issued way before they have been subjected to a specialized or best practice review (Benyoucef & Canbolat, 2017). Therefore, these IT procurement contracts in Canada are often drafted as contract tails that are intended to wag the procurement dog, which is specifically a recipe for inappropriate and challenging contract negotiations. This is because once such a pro forma document leaves the institution, it then becomes too late to ask for adherence to any preferred and successful IT procurement and also contracting practices that were not initially included in that document. If such important information is left out, many critical aspects of the acquisition become too hard to be introduced into the process hence leaving out substantial commercial, legal, and technical terms and conditions of the purchase.

Approaches to Solve Challenges Facing Canadian IT Health Care Procurement

Use of Updated IT technology in Healthcare procurement

Successful technology application of IT in healthcare procurement involves three main area; primary policy area, secondary policy area, and policy outcomes. Primary policy area ensures good acquisition through standardization. Secondary policy area involves training of the users and maintenance and repairs. Policy outcomes include improved use, fewer incidents and improved availability. If current healthcare procurement systems are combined with the technology-enabled purchasing power, it will give the healthcare institutions the ability to ensure simplified procurement processes that will shift from the current labor-intensive and expensive option to a just review and approve approach that will save both time and resources and improve the outcome of the patients. The authorities will have to go into the IT-enabled systems and set the parameters for the items that cannot be purchased hence the organization can delegate the purchasing power to only the workers who need it thus saving time and resources. This approach can help in controlling overspending as well as reduce duplicate payments, therefore, allowing the clinicians to have more time to focus on the issues brought by the patients.

The Canadian healthcare system needs to adopt the e-Health technological infrastructure that encompasses all the procedures and applications required in IT procurement that include; hardware, software, communications as well as database technologies that combine to offer the solution that the healthcare requires (Bliemel & Hassanein, 2014). Therefore, to be able to ensure success in the e-Health initiative,...