Developing Hospital Resilient Supply Chain Scenario through Cross-Impact Analysis Method

Background and Objectives The hospital and its supply chain must be resilient in the critical situations. Developing scenario is an important tool for planning and decision-making process in these situations. Therefore, this study intended to develop possible scenarios for hospital supply chain resilience. Material and Methods This research study is applied in terms of purpose and is based the scenario method and the probabilistic trends approach. The participants of the study were 14 experts from two hospitals who were selected through a purposeful sampling method. The data obtained in the first phase of the semi-structured interviews, were coded and analyzed through using MAXQDA Software. In the next phase, the cross impact analysis questionnaire was used to develop the scenario and the analysis of the data was performed through Scenario Wizard software. Results The results of combining 35 states for 12 factors affecting hospital resilience which also included all possible future states, showed that 7 scenarios with high adaptation and 467 scenarios with poor adaptation can be considered. Strong scenarios were divided into three groups of scenarios as "optimistic", "intermediate" and "pessimistic" based on similarity and degree of desirability. Conclusion The Findings revealed that the strength of the impact of unfavorable states was more than that of favorable states. Therefore, for the resilience of the hospital supply chain, it is necessary to pay more attention to unfavorable scenarios to provide the necessary preparation to face those states, and with proper planning, the desired states can be achieved. Extended Abstract Background and Objectives The complexity and intensity of environmental fluctuations combined with unexpected accidents and dangers have increased the probability of hospital supply chain disruptions. The hospital and its supply chain must be intelligent to resist unforeseen events, so that in different situations, there is no work stoppage in their activities. Scenarios are an important tool for improving the planning and decision-making process in these situations. The purpose of this paper is to develop a scenario for hospital supply chain resilience. Material and Methods This research is based on the scenario method, and it is applied in terms of purpose. In addition, in the category of normative scenarios and based on the probabilistic modified trends (PMT) school. The Participants were 14 experts from two hospitals who were pu