Factors influencing Drug Consumption and Prediction Methods

TL;DR

This paper reviews existing methods for predicting drug consumption in hospitals, identifies key influencing factors, and aims to improve inventory management and logistics through better forecasting tools.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of six prediction methods and categorizes 34 factors affecting drug consumption, aiding the development of improved forecasting tools.

Findings

Six prediction methods identified and described.

34 factors influencing drug consumption categorized into three groups.

Insights to support better pharmaceutical inventory planning.

Abstract

Estimating the needs of healthcare products and inventory management are still challenging issues in hospitals nowadays. Centers are supposed to cope with tight budgets and patient satisfaction at the same time. Some issues can be tackled in advance, especially regarding the prediction of drug consumption needs. This work delves into the literature in order to highlight existing methods of quantifying and estimating the needs for drugs in health facilities. A second objective is to draw up a list of factors that impact drug consumption in particular, factors that are used in these prediction methods. Following this literature review, it appears that six sustainable methods are being used by practitioners around the world, taking into account certain prerequisites and types of data. Thirty-four factors are identified as well and grouped into three categories. These results should participate in setting up new tools for predicting the need of drugs, to facilitate the upstream dimensioning of new pharmaceutical warehouses and to solve some hospital logistics issues.