By John Strong
December 10, 2021 – In this season of reflection, it seems appropriate to assess how the healthcare supply chain has changed during the past 20 months of global pandemic. Folks seem to have many villains they like to point to, but what we have experienced is really a reflection of many different economic and supply chain forces at work.
About 10 years ago, I had occasions where I would take the Amtrak Acela between Philadelphia and New York City. Month after month I couldn’t help but notice out the train window what offshoring of industries, jobs and hope had done to a wide swath of northeast Philadelphia shortly after we left Union Station. For several miles the train passed through neighborhoods with ghosts of factories and stores that had undoubtedly thrived in the last century—but were no more. It spoke volumes about the intertwined nature of our economy.
Critics of the healthcare supply chain have opined that we outsourced “too much” in our never-ending quest for better prices. But the same can be said for virtually every industry in America—and now we are feeling the effects on all those supply chains, including those beyond healthcare.
Many different solutions have been proposed and implemented for ensuring a secure healthcare supply chain—though none of them alone can do the job. Why should hospitals (and in some cases their GPOs) have to manufacture (formerly) common products such as examination gloves, disposable PPE, and pharmaceuticals? The warning signs have been developing for years—and only brought to the fore by the global pandemic. Are these real and meaningful solutions across the healthcare supply chain? Likely not.
Is it possible, in our quest for the absolute rock-bottom price, we are driving both manufacturers and distributors of healthcare products out of business or offshore? Perhaps…