By Linda Rouse O’Neill
The importance of emergency preparedness
When was the last time you sat down with your customers to review their emergency planning procedures? The Ebola crisis in late 2014 tested the resources and readiness of both providers and suppliers, right before major winter snowstorms hit the Eastern U.S. seaboard. This year, we’ve seen drought hit California hard, tornadoes touch down in the Midwest, and the Atlantic hurricane season is projected to last well through November.
Distributors are essential support for healthcare providers during natural disasters, biological events, and other adverse scenarios.
If you haven’t done it lately, sit down with your customers to plan for worst-case scenarios and to ensure that the right processes and contingencies are in place to prevent service disruptions.
Contingency Planning
So what are some steps you and your customers can take to avoid being caught off guard in the event of an emergency? Start by making sure your emergency contact lists are up to date. HIDA remains highly engaged in emergency preparedness policy on the national level with the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Healthcare and Public Health Sector Coordinating Council (HSCC). Both agencies strongly advocate for maintaining updated city, county, state, and federal emergency response agency contact information for easy reference.
Next, set up weather alerts on computers, cell phones, and email systems. Some emergencies can be predicted and even avoided – for instance, by sending delivery trucks in a day early when a snowstorm is coming.
It’s also important to let your customers know that distributors’ inventory capacity can be their greatest resource. A simple reminder that inventory reserves can be increased in advance of potential weather events can go a long way. You can also follow this brief checklist that can help you fully realize customer item and order preferences for any given situation, while also meeting expectations:
- Agree on automatic substitution lists or pre-approved alternate products to avoid shortages of critical items.
- Consider offering reserved, contracted customer inventories, where products are set aside for a particular organization and available warehouse stock is guaranteed regardless of the scenario.
- Establish customer inventory minimums and maximums – which can be measured by month, week, day, or clinical department – using utilization data to preload hypothetical or conditional orders that can be delivered in the day(s) prior to or during a predicted weather event if communications break down.
Distributors’ inventory capacity can be a customer’s greatest resource.
Medical products distributors play a pivotal role in emergency preparedness. Distributors are essential support for healthcare providers during natural disasters, biological events, and other adverse scenarios. With proper response planning, your customers can focus on patient care and have faith in knowing that you can maintain uninterrupted service in times of need.
In June, HIDA’s Government Affairs team brought member executives to D.C. to participate in the annual Washington Summit and to educate senior government policy makers on emergency preparedness. Recently, HIDA has collaborated with key government agencies on the national Ebola response and continues to work on future supply chain response strategies and solutions.
Real-time Emergency/Pandemic Preparedness distributor resources, which include preparedness planning documents and customer strategies for a variety of situations, are available at www.HIDA.org. For more information on this or other topics, please contact us at HIDAGovAffairs@hida.org.