By Linda Rouse O’Neill, Senior Vice President for Supply Chain Policy, Health Industry Distributors Association
HIDA recently convened its third annual Preparedness Summit, which featured a record number of federal, state, and local partners from key government agencies. These agency stakeholders met with leaders in the healthcare distribution industry to discuss efforts to build greater resilience into the medical supply chain.
Like any exercise in the gym, repetition builds strength. After three consecutive years, the “muscle memory” developed from these Summits has strengthened links between the public and private sectors and maintained relationships built during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Preparedness Summit was a useful opportunity to gather perspectives and obtain feedback across three major topics – communications, technology, and resiliency.
Communications: In the past year, HIDA has developed a plan to establish effective communication channels between commercial supply chain partners and the federal government. This plan is aimed at supporting the playbook developed last year to monitor the medical supply chain, which we call the Traffic Protocol Partnership. This protocol resembles a traffic light – with levels of escalating concern from green, to yellow, and finally red.
At the Preparedness Summit, attendees were able to stress test the communications plan in tabletop discussions. Stakeholders focused on ways to keep lines of communication open during “Green” conditions – normal operations when the medical supply chain is NOT under strain. Participants discussed ways to build internal teams for inventory management and set thresholds for when to alert customers and federal agencies to emerging stress in the medical supply chain.
Technology: Informed decision-making requires access to impactful data to guide preparedness planning and response. This requires an assessment of the remaining data gaps in our preparedness technology, and the development of ways to address them. Tools created during COVID-19, such as the Supply Chain Control Tower – should be maintained in ways that continue to encourage voluntary participation and protect proprietary data.
Furthermore, data needs to be protected from malign actors. Recent online attacks on healthcare providers put the issue of cybersecurity top of mind for Summit attendees. Supply chain leaders should conduct cyber risk assessments given their critical role in supporting healthcare providers and patient care. Federal partners discussed the multiple tools at their disposal to assist the commercial market in security assessments and exercises.
Resiliency: For many participants, issues of supply chain resilience remain top of mind. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that having earlier information on potential disruptions and product shortages would have eased stress on healthcare providers. Among government stakeholders, more engagement is needed with state, local, tribal, and territorial health officials. Additionally, the commercial market needs to deepen relationships with the shipping subject matter experts in their companies. Before the pandemic, supply chain managers were rarely part of executive level decisions in the corporate suite. After the pandemic, it is hard to imagine them NOT having a seat at the table.
Most importantly, the Preparedness Summit reaffirmed the value of public-private partnerships that were established during the pandemic and have been nurtured by HIDA ever since. Partnerships are the only way for effective preparedness planning and response. Neither the public sector nor the commercial market can do it alone. Only with continued collaboration can supply chain leaders ensure that policymakers and the public do not have short term memory when it comes to future response efforts.