Climbing the ladder of knowledge about drug shortages through business analytics

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.