Based on the assignment in Week 2, analyze how the economics in your market impact your organization’s management of its supply chain. Based on the assignment in Week 4, analyze if the expenses in your organization are impacted positively or negatively by how the supply chain is managed
Summative Assessment- Supply Chain Management
Economics in the Market
CIOX’s top-range medical data records unlock multiple uses for health data. Among others, the records provide healthcare insights that are life savers for many patients. The company’s primary goal is to unlock the full potential of health data. In addition, CIOX also seeks to facilitate access to health data, modernize task performance, and improve nationwide information flow. These services form the basis of CIOX’s supply chain network. Essentially, the company connects medical services providers and decision-makers with hidden data and insights from patients’ health records.
The economics of CIOX’s health information market are cost, access, and quality aspects. These economic trends greatly influence CIOX’s supply chain. As mentioned earlier, CIOX’s supply chain includes elements such as ensuring effective access to health data, modernizing clinical tasks, and enhancing information flow (CIOX, 2018). Firstly, while the company seeks to ensure patients access as much information as possible, it also wants to ensure that the records cover as many patients as possible nationwide. Modernizing operations also calls for ensuring it does not come at a higher cost (CIOX, 2018). Finally, to enhance information flow, the company wants to ensure that such information is as accurate as possible to avoid medical errors.
Expenses of the Organization
According to Fryan et al. (2021), the cost of medical records shifted significantly following a ruling by the District Court of Columbia in 2020. Shortly after the court ruling, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and health records were needed more than ever during the pandemic. Following the court ruling, patient rates reduced significantly. The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) state in their specific websites that the initial patient rate is attributable to earlier guidelines that did not limit healthcare providers on how much they could provide.
The ruling by the District Court of Columbia affected two aspects of the cost structure of the earlier medical records. Firstly, patients were allowed to access patient records in multiple formats beyond electronic formats (Fryan et al., 2021). Besides, third-party healthcare stakeholders, including health insurance companies, would now access these records. Most importantly, the ruling scrapped all patient rates on medical data requests. Instead, only healthcare providers would be required to pay for health data. These changes were influenced by the health market economic trends- access and affordability (cost).
Quality
Logan et al. (2001) aver that the pursuit of quality also affects how medical records companies interact with their supply chains. The ultimate determinant of whether a record has sufficient quality is whether it fulfills its intended purpose. For instance, if a patient on drug overdose is taken into the emergency section, physicians will need to establish whether the patient is allergic to some medicines before beginning the treatment process. Medical records will be needed more, especially if such a patient is not accompanied by a family member or someone who has knowledge about their medical history.
Notably, quality is subjective and varies from patient to patient. Also, quality is based on patient-physician interaction. For this reason, most healthcare facilities like videotaping their interactions and later evaluating the records to determine patient satisfaction (Logan et al., 2001). These videos provide critical insights, which are later used to measure the quality of healthcare.
The State of Supply Chain Management and Operations
CIOX leverages partnerships with sister health data companies to reduce the cost of data acquisition. One of the successful partnerships that have greatly improved the delivery of healthcare records is the one with Diameter Health. Through the partnership, CIOX uses Diameter’s in-class infusion engine to acquire data. The partnership resulted from the fact that records are diverse, fragmented across different organizations, and sometimes not comprehensive enough. Gathering such data and processing it to obtain actionable insights is quite expensive. Diameter Health’s infusion technology comes in handy since it facilitates the accumulation of such data to produce the desired outcomes.
The partnership has helped reduce CIOX Company’s data acquisition costs. Notably, that is because the company does not have to purchase it from different vendors, as that would come at a higher cost. In addition, Diameter’s advanced technological capabilities ensure that the company hosts comp