Supply Chain Resilience and Service Delivery of Public Health Care Facilities in Western Region Kenya

Abstract

Supply chain management is a crucial activity that entails overseeing the movement of materials from the source, throughput, to the end consumer. However, in this endeavour, there are increased instances of uncertainties, i.e., speeds of delivery, flexibility, and environmental factors that affect the services rendered to the end consumer. This drives the concept of supply chain resilience as the ability of an organization to cope with stress from any factors in its environment and manage to maintain functionality in spite of unexpected or disruptive events. The healthcare sector has undergone significant changes over the past decades. Amidst these changes, attaining efficient and effective healthcare service delivery remains a distant prospect for many nations. This study therefore sought to find out the effect of supply chain resilience on service delivery in the public health care sector in the Western Region of Kenya. The hypothesis for the study was that supply chain resilience has no significant influence on service delivery in the public health care sector in the Western Region of Kenya. The study was anchored on two theories: the theory of human service delivery and strategic choice theory. The study adopted a positivist research philosophy and a descriptive survey research design, and the target population was 284 respondents from the four level 5 county hospitals in the western region. Questionnaires were used for data collection and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Data was presented using tables, scree plots, and scatter plots. The study is of value to researchers and academicians, county government authorities, and residents of the four counties. 258 respondents participated in the study, and preliminary data checking, screening, and cleaning were done. Validity and reliability statistics were done, and they indicated that the research instruments were adequate for their purpose. Diagnostic tests were also conducted, and none of the variables violated normality, linearity, homoscedasticity and multicollinearity assumptions. Regression analysis shows that there is a statistically significant relationship between resilience and service delivery (t = 6.115, p<0.05). The null hypothesis was thus rejected. The study recommended that hospitals maintain communication and information sharing with suppliers to enhance collaboration, resilience, and responsiveness in their supply chains. Hospitals should engage in frequent forecasting of demand to ensure that their services are aligned with seasonal changes in demand.