Configuration of Sustainable Supply Chain of Health Services Using the Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Method: A Case Study on the Hospitals of Kerman, Iran

Configuration of supply chain is considered as the highest level of decision-making, which is part of the strategic decision-making process. According to few studies on the service supply chain, the current study aimed at configuring the sustainable supply chain of health services using the fuzzy cognitive mapping method.
The current research was deigned based on mixed method (quantitative and quantitative). The qualitative statistical population of the study was the hospital experts of which 18 individuals were selected by the snowball sampling method for interviewing and extraction of effective concepts on the sustainable supply chain of hospitals. In a small part of all employees of hospitals in Kerman, Iran, 414 individuals were selected as the quantitative samples using random sampling method. The sustainable supply chain questionnaire in hospital was made by the author and exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the concepts of 15 main factors designed with fuzzy cognitive mapping method to quantitatively configure the sustainable supply chain. SPPS version 18, EXCEL, PAJEK, and FCMAPPER were employed in the current study.
The effective measure on the sustainable supply chain comprised of 60 concepts in the form of 15 main factors. Based on 15 concepts, the configuration of the sustainable supply chain was designed. The results showed that service delivery management with 4.19 degrees has the highest centrality and attention to the environment with 0.99 degrees has the lowest centrality among other factors.
Service delivery management has a high impact on sustainable supply chain in hospitals. Therefore, it is recommended that hospital officials focus on service delivery management factors and manage it to reach a more sustainable supply chain.