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Personal protective equipment like N95 masks, goggles, gloves and disposable gowns were among the earliest supply chain concerns of the pandemic.
Like most industries globally, the health care field continues to face unprecedented supply chain issues that began with the COVID-19 pandemic and have continued due to geopolitical factors, labor shortages, transportation disruptions, inflation, availability of raw materials and other factors. In West Virginia, hospitals continue to rely on the lessons learned early in the pandemic to navigate the ongoing challenge.
Personal protective equipment like N95 masks, goggles, gloves and disposable gowns were among the earliest supply chain concerns of the pandemic.
Facilities have reported that items like blood collection tubes, epidural administration sets and urinary Foley catheter trays have reportedly been more difficult to procure. While supply chain managers are used to dealing with sporadic shortages in connection to events like natural disasters or a disruption of a certain raw material, the issues faced since the start of the pandemic in early 2020 have been unprecedented in their scale and duration.
“Product/manufacture backorders have always been part of what we do,” said Charleston Area Medical Center spokesperson Dale Witte. “However, the pandemic has been the most protracted, all-encompassing event that we have seen.”
The situation has been very fluid, with changes week-to-week in what products are affected, he said.
Recently, suppliers have raised concern about the impact the Ukraine-Russia conflict will have on the semiconductor market as Ukraine is a major producer of the neon used in the devices. Semiconductors are used in a variety of electronic products, including medical devices.
“This is entirely new. We find ourselves evaluating almost all aspects of our supplies for goods and services, clinical and non-clinical,” said Paul Gallagher, president of WVU Medicine’s Allied Health Solutions. “Even something as simple as the supply of food we evaluate and have developed a crisis management program to ensure we have ways of dealing with all future situations.”
Past challenges with Ebola, H1N1 influenza and SARS provided hospitals with a glimpse of what they might expect, but all were short-term challenges compared to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, where facilities across the globe were all competing for the same limited supplies, according to Keith Dabbs, Mon Health System director of supply chain management.
“COVID affected everybody. In the whole global supply chain, we were all fishing out of the same pond,” he said.
Those challenges changed hospitals’ relationship with suppliers and manufacturers and improved communications in a way that has made it easier to deal with the new challenges in the supply chain.
The lines of communication have improved throughout the chain, allowing hospitals to get advanced warning about supplies that may be in short supply in the future.
This advanced warning provides more time to minimize waste, procure the supplies necessary or to find alternatives.
Hospitals are trying to tow the line, keeping a stockpile of critical items while avoiding hoarding that could further exacerbate supply issues, according to Dabbs.
“With everything we’ve learned in supply chain management and health care supply chain management as a result of COVID, we’re certainly better prepared to address potential issues that may arise from foreign influences like Ukraine, oil prices, inflation, effects on raw materials to produce,” Dabbs said. “Not only in health care supply chain management, but you or I or any family, this has changed how we think in general of how we buy groceries, how often we buy clothes, how often we go out to eat, how often we interact. All that has been impacted. This is carrying over into the supply chain.”
When necessary, hospital supply chain staff have found necessary supplies by finding new vendors or nontraditional suppliers.
“Nearly all the issues surrounding COVID have caused us to look at our source of origin and, in many instances, change products and manufacturers as a result,” Gallagher said.
There also have been moves to manufacture certain items, particularly PPE, in state.
Allied Health Solutions applied for and secured our own import registration, according to Gallagher.
Clinicians may have preferences and proficiency on products by specific manufacturers based on past usage, but are now becoming more accustomed to working with whatever is available, said Jim Kaufman, president and CEO of the West Virginia Hospital Association.
Mon Health System also has learned that greater collaboration between supply chain managers and clinicians can be beneficial in navigating shortages, according to Dabbs.
“We want to make sure if we’re looking at a substitute that’s presented to us, we’re engaging our clinicians,” he said.
Facilities also have shared supplies, according to Dabbs.
“Sometimes what you may see happen is, if they can’t get a certain thing, it may require them to defer a procedure or make modifications, but they’re going to do everything they can to best serve the community,” Kaufman said.
Thus far, the impact has been minimal. While Mon Health has postponed some multiphasic testing events due to a shortage of blood collection tubes, for example, no procedures have been delayed in recent months, according to Dabbs.
“Our patients are our top priority,” he said. “When our community needs us, we’re there for them and so sometimes in a situation, it’s best to forgo an event to make sure we can take care of the people who are here. That is our focus no matter what the situation is.
“... We’re all in this for health care and taking care of other people that depend on us.”
Senior staff Writer JoAnn Snoderly can be reached at 304-626-1445, by email at jsnoderly@theet.com or on Twitter at @JoAnnSnoderly.
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