{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,10]],"date-time":"2026-04-10T08:12:25Z","timestamp":1775808745771,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":28,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,9]],"date-time":"2024-02-09T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1707436800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Fondazione Cariplo \u201cData Science for science and society\u201d Area Ricerca Scientifica"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Systems"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Drug distribution performed through hospital pharmacies facilitates public expenditure savings but incurs higher social costs for patients and caregivers. The widespread presence of community pharmacies could support patient access while also improving drug distribution. The implementation of prescriptive data analyses as constrained optimization to achieve specific objectives, could be also applied with good results in the healthcare context. Assuming the perspective of the Italian National Healthcare Service, the present study, built upon existing research in this field, proposes a decision support tool that is able to define which self-administered drugs for chronic diseases should be distributed by community pharmacies, answering to critical challenges in the case of future pandemics and healthcare emergencies, while also providing suggestions for the institutional decision-making process. Moreover, the tool aids in determining the optimal setup of the drug distribution network, comparing centralized (hospital pharmacies) and decentralized (community pharmacies) approaches, as well as their economic and social implications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/systems12020056","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,9]],"date-time":"2024-02-09T08:12:03Z","timestamp":1707466323000},"page":"56","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Redesigning the Drugs Distribution Network: The Case of the Italian National Healthcare Service"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"12","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0000-8794-8491","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Federica","family":"Asperti","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Healthcare Data Science LAB, LIUC\u2014Carlo Cattaneo University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1381-9069","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Emanuela","family":"Foglia","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Healthcare Data Science LAB, LIUC\u2014Carlo Cattaneo University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Giovanni","family":"Pirovano","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Engineering, LIUC\u2014Carlo Cattaneo University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rossella","family":"Pozzi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Engineering, LIUC\u2014Carlo Cattaneo University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Tommaso","family":"Rossi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Engineering, LIUC\u2014Carlo Cattaneo University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Maurizia","family":"Punginelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Pharmaceutical Service, Territorial Health Service of Insubria, 21110 Varese, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Fabrizio","family":"Schettini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Healthcare Data Science LAB, LIUC\u2014Carlo Cattaneo University, 21053 Castellanza, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,9]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"234","DOI":"10.1108\/IJPHM-10-2015-0050","article-title":"Strategic issues in pharmaceutical supply chains: A review","volume":"10","author":"Singh","year":"2016","journal-title":"Int. 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