Climbing the ladder of knowledge about drug shortages through business analytics
Master thesis
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Date
2021Metadata
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- Master of Science [1622]
Abstract
Despite techonological tranformations and innovations, the global supply of drugs
has faced increasing difficulties to meet its demand. The resulting deviations have
lead to an exponential increase in the number of annualy reported drug shortages.
In the absense of sufficient global coordination, national policymakers are
currently leading the fight against these deficits through domestic stategies and
decision-making.
The purpose of this thesis is to examine the information currently available to
Norwegian health policymakers with regards to drug shortages, and research how
practises from the field of business analytics can be applied to assist in their
decision-making. Bohn’s (1994) framework for measurement of technological
knowledge is applied to evaluate the current knowlegde level with respect to drug
shortages, as well as the projected progress following the introduction of
analytical methods and perspectives. The source of data for our analysis is the
annualy collected and published reports from Statens Legemiddelverk (SLV),
which is the official platform for reporting of drug shortages in Norway. Through
comprehensive data cleansing and in-depth evaluation of the data quality, we have
identified key characteriztics and shortcomings with regards to standarization in
the reporting process, which prevents further analysis and subsequent
advancements of knowledge.
Our research suggests that the knowledge level regarding drug shortages in
Norway remains at quite a low level, thus possessing great potential for
progression. Our findings imply that higher knowledge levels can be reached
through application of analytical methods, as the first steps towards realization is
the appropriate facilitation of such practice. We propose changes to the current
reporting system and subsequent data management to counteract the lack of
standardization. As such, we believe that the true value of business analytical
practices, to aid decision-making regarding drug shortages, will be unlocked when
the required foundation is in place.
Description
Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Business Analytics - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2021