Managing E-Procurement in Public Healthcare: A Knowledge Management Perspective

In large parts of Europe, the development of healthcare is subject to contrasting forces: explosion in spending, while governments are faced with budget constraints, and pressures to be innovative, technologically advanced in order to improve the services’ quality. Even though e-procurement initatives can be seen as a solution to the first issue in this dilemma, such initiatives have not been widely deployed and have not delivered the expected benefits so far. In this perspective, as case study of an e-procurement implementation of an Italian local healthcare agency has been examined because of the comprehensive design of the e-procurement system, the differentiation of tools adopted and the multiple solutions already implemented or in progress. The aim of this work is to reconstruct, by following a knowledge management approach, the steps that led to the introduction of e-procurement as a new operating practice, by redesigning supply purchasing, supply chain and logistic processes.