Abstract:

In recent years， the increasing penetration of social networks has changed the way people retrieve health information and seek medical treatment， and online medical services have improved the accessibility of quality medical resources. To effectively accelerate the development of “Internet Plus Medicine”， the reform of the health system needs to take the group procurement of medicines as an important element. Healthcare group purchasing organization （GPO） is considered to play an integral role in the healthcare supply chain by keeping prices low and helping all members of the healthcare system achieve their objectives. A two-channel pharmaceutical supply chain consisting of a pharmaceutical enterprise， a GPO and multiple medical institutions are investigated. The impact of whether medical institutions share forecast information with pharmaceutical enterprise on their purchasing decisions is considered， and finally the optimal purchasing strategies are discussed. The result shows that the prediction accuracy and network operation cost of pharmaceutical enterprise are the key factors influencing the procurement strategies. In the case of medical institutions without information sharing， if the prediction accuracy of medical institutions is too low， pharmaceutical enterprise tends to adopt the regarded as decentralized group procurement； If the prediction accuracy is high enough， pharmaceutical enterprise is inclined to adopt the group procurement. For medical institutions， the procurement strategies are opposite. In the case of medical institutions with information sharing， if patients' acceptance of online channel is large， it is the same as that of pharmaceutical enterprise without information sharing. For medical institutions， when the network operation cost of medical enterprises and patients' acceptance of online channel are small， which are contrary to the condition without information sharing. In summary， the effect of forecast information sharing on the group purchasing strategy in the pharmaceutical dual-channel supply chain is studied by employing the game theory. The findings can provide academic and practical insights for group purchasing under incomplete information．

Key words: information sharing, group purchasing, pharmaceutical dual channel supply chain, forecast accuracy