Packaging, supply & logistics
highly complex, there are many suppliers providing various goods and services, and supply chains are almost always global,” says Professor Wesley Randall of the Department of Supply Chain Management at the University of North Texas. “In search of greater cost efficiency, manufacturers go global, which increases risk…a global supply chain with many partners has a higher probability of a disruption.” “A combination of fragmented systems and silos across healthcare makes it hard to get the data you need to predict demand or to communicate with disparate facilities,” adds Mutaz Shegewi, senior research director for worldwide healthcare provider platforms and technologies at market intelligence firm IDC. “That leads to inefficiency in decision- making, which was exaggerated during the pandemic. Organisations came out of that with lots of lessons learnt about improving efficiency and removing data silos to better understand trends in demand.” But there may be a way of improving outcomes and efficiencies, and cloud-based solutions are emerging as a top contender for helping to connect these various systems to smooth supply chains.
Navigating the data maze The probability of disruption may be low in a hospital supply chain, but its impact can be severe. One example is Hurricane Maria in 2017, which wiped out the highly consolidated IV fluid production capacity in Puerto Rico. This alerted the healthcare industry and regulatory bodies, since the disruption impacted the entire healthcare industry by creating a critical shortage of IV bags. “This shortage created a cascading effect, leading to shortages of other essential medical supplies like syringes, electrolytes, amino acids and certain medications that require IV administration,” Randall explains. “Hospitals had to rapidly create contingency plans, such as converting patients from IV to oral medications where possible, using IV push for antibiotics instead of IV bags, and rationing the limited supply of IV fluids. Patient care was impacted.”
Such instances have fuelled investment in cloud- based SCM solutions, which provide a cost-efficient infrastructure for many disparate data streams, partly to allow supply chains to become more agile in the face of disruption. “Patient outcomes and business outcomes are not separate,” remarks Shegewi. “When the supply chain is ineffective that impacts patient outcomes and employee experience, too.” And to run well, most supply chains will need data on “anything to do with tracking and monitoring to enable forecasting of demand data. Inventory data, stock levels, expiration dates for medications – all are critical data sets,” he adds.
“So, too, are supplier metrics around reliability, pricing and capacity. Then there is logistics data, regulatory data, compliance data, traceability and more.”
Though many existing SCM technologies seek to create total visibility in supply chains, the harsh reality is that few manufacturers or suppliers are willing to share information with complete transparency – hence the emergence of data silos. Regulatory concerns – notably the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the US and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe – elevate that risk as they limit the sharing of patient data.
“Early SCM systems generated silos and locked organisations into ecosystems without opening the data up to a wider context,” notes Shegewi. “It is not just about outdated legacy systems, but also vendor lock-in to tie in customers. Also, the language did not exist to enable communication between systems. The cloud offers transformative potential to disrupt the status quo in healthcare. It provides more centralisation of data storage, more interoperability, and better real-time collaboration.” A recent survey by Sage Growth Partners, which sought opinions from 103 hospital and health system leaders, found that nearly 70% of hospitals are likely to have adopted a cloud-based approach to SCM by 2026. Furthermore, almost 80% of respondents that had transitioned to cloud-based SCM technologies characterised the move as positive.
Seeking solutions in the cloud Cloud-based technologies are very good at consolidating data and breaking down silos. They can facilitate inventory tracking for medical supplies, equipment and pharmaceuticals, particularly if there is a single third-party logistics provider (or 3PL). A large 3PL or vendor can also create savings and improve responsiveness by risk pooling across multiple customers. “If the information in the cloud is sound, and can be trusted, and is available to all partners, then it is going to be a more efficient and effective supply chain than one that does not share or have a cloud architecture,” Randall explains.
“Scalability allows cloud-based SCM to handle greater volumes of data and without any big on-premises infrastructure investment,” adds Shegewi. “Real-time updates to allow stakeholders to make better decisions and design strategies to enhance efficiency are being delivered by the cloud. Centralised data management eliminates silos, and interoperability means you are better able to integrate and standardise data, with the promise of cost-efficiency over time.”
Medical Device Developments /
www.medicaldevice-developments.com 91
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