6. Conclusions and discussion
The results of this empirical study offer new insights about how healthcare providers can improve their SCM for organizational competitiveness. In hospitals with more than 500 beds the results confirm the effect of innovation leadership on process improvement (H1) and IT applications (H2) as part of SC innovation. The study found a positive relationship between process improvement (H3) and IT applications (H4) as part of SC innovation with SC efficiency. On the other hand, in hospitals with b500 beds three hypotheses were supported: H1, H2, and H3.