Paragraph 1 Summary
This study aims to analyze the current drug purchase systems used in general hospitals (purchase organization, purchase methods, etc.) in order to suggest efficient schemes for the purchase.
Methodologically, this study included literature review and survey research, and the questionnaires used in this study were prepared by the present author after analyzing the systems for general hospitals to purchase and supply their medical supplies.
The researches were carried out on such Korean general hospitals with the number of sickbeds ranged from 150 to 1,000, and the research materials were collected from the questionnaires distributed to 70 hospitals. Of the 70 questionnaires, only 51 (73%) are valid since the remaining 19 are incomplete in their answers.
The following are the summarized findings of the researches.
First, only 72.5% of the hospitals investigated had their own purchase system, which was poor since five workers on the average were working on the systems.
Second, a very high percentage (80.4%) of the hospitals employed an central purchase method.
Third, an unexpectedly high percentage (51%) of the hospitals established a common competitive contract or a unit price contract to purchase their medical supplies while only 28.8% made a private free contract.
Fourth, a very low percentage (11.9%) of the hospitals used the Korea Online E-Procurement System maintained by the Public Procurement Service, in order to invite tenders and/or their estimations for purchasing the medical supplies.
Finally, 88.2% of the officers in charge of the purchase in the hospitals were informed in their professional field only by their predecessors; it implies that the officers need be trained even for some time in the purchase matters.
Paragraph 2 Conclusions
From the above findings, the conclusions listed below are drawn.
First, the hospitals should use the Korea Online E-Procurement System (www.g2b.go.kr) maintained by the Public Procurement Service in order to invite tenders and/or their estimations for purchasing the medical supplies, so that their competitiveness to purchase the supplies may be improved and their systems may be competitive, transparent, economical and efficient.
Second, an central purchase method should be adopted to purchase the supplies according to a unit price contract or common competitive contract method, so as to secure their competitiveness and prevent a rigged bid.
Third, it is necessary that the officers in charge of the purchase in the hospitals should be mandated to get a 'procurement contractor' certificate in order to make them have appropriate professional qualities.
Finally, this study conducted researches on just such general hospitals with the number of sickbeds ranging from 150 to 1,000. In contrast, future researches need be continuously developed on general hospitals sub-divided depending upon the number of their sickbeds and investigations shall be made into their purchase organization, purchase type, contract method, etc.