A nationwide railroad strike might be on the horizon. Railroad workers rejected new labor agreements this week, inspiring fear that they could begin striking mid-November.
Much of the conversation surrounding this potential railroad strike has centered on the disastrous consequences it could have on the upcoming holiday season, creating supply chain shortages for gifts and food. But it’s also important to consider the devastating impact a strike could have on the healthcare supply chain — it could create shortages for drugs and medical equipment needed to provide care.
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There are three key considerations that healthcare providers should take note of while they anticipate the possibility of a railroad strike, Kyle MacKinnon, Premier’s senior director of operational excellence, said in an interview. He leads the program for supply chain disruption and disaster preparedness at Premier, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based healthcare improvement company that works with health systems and hospitals.
Have proactive conversations with suppliers
Supply chain shortages cause massive disruptions across all industries, but they’re especially problematic for healthcare. Not having enough medical equipment or drugs could possibly jeopardize patients’ lives, MacKinnon pointed out. That’s why he thinks it’s crucial for providers to actively engage with their suppliers to understand where there is risk in the supply chain and how to account for it.
Getting ahead of supply chain shortages often requires providers to work with their vendors to expand the geographic diversity of manufacturing sites, according to MacKinnon.
“Anything that you can do as partners to help offset that risk and still provide the continuity of the supply chain is going to be for the patient’s benefit,” he said.
Identify alternatives for products
Providers that are preparing for supply chain shortages should think about diversifying their vendor portfolio, MacKinnon recommended. This could mean pre-approving clinically acceptable product alternatives so that a provider doesn’t have to rely on one vendor to have an adequate supply.
While looking for alternatives, MacKinnon cautioned that providers should be careful about price gouging and gray market manufacturers (unofficial distribution channels that are have not gotten approval from the original manufacturer or trade mark proprietor).
“You want to understand who is reliable, and who has a product for which you know where it’s coming from, how it’s made and with what materials,” he said. “You want to know if it has the same qualities and features as the product that you’re used to. Because at the end of the day, you need to guarantee that that’s going to be effective on a patient.”
Leverage data to form next steps
Providers can take advantage of their data to analyze utilization across their facilities and predict future product supply needs to create more informed inventory management strategies, according to MacKinnon.
“Data is very powerful in terms of understanding and predicting demand and case mix,” he said. “Premier uses data very heavily to help providers understand what the trends are across the U.S. and what utilization rates are for certain products. We try to build models and look at scenarios where we have unhealthy markets so we can quickly point to alternative products with suppliers that have healthy markets where there aren’t shortages or back orders.”
Photo: FilippoBacci, Getty Images
