Managing shortages of products in the Dutch healthcare sector : a typology

This thesis investigates the issue of product shortages in the Dutch healthcare sector across three departments and three product categories. The departments are cardiology, oncology and surgery and the product categories are drugs, PPE and diagnostics (equipment). Through a qualitative desk research, in combination with evaluative one-to-one interviews with procurement experts, a typology was created, which finds several general strategies for buyers to tackle product shortages in healthcare. Throughout the results section, a framework of causes of shortages, impacts of shortages and responses of shortages is used, to find potential similarities and differences within departments or product categories systematically. Through the literature research a provisional typology was created, which was refined with the inputs of the evaluative interviews with experts, both from within and outside of the healthcare sector.