Collaborative Healthcare Supply Chain Management

Supply chain simply refers to the distribution of necessary goods from point A to B in a manner that’s cost-effective and reliable. The more seamless the process, the better the result would be. To optimize the efficacy of services rendered, it is critical to cater to the supply chain management system in advance.  

In the healthcare industry, it is as crucial as you can think of it. There are many medical equipment distributors in USA but the topmost and the most reliable ones should be considered. The complex chain of medical professionals, pharmaceuticals, and medical equipment has relied massively on its supply chain to deliver the best care to its patients.  

What Do You Mean by Supply Chain Collaboration?

The collaborative supply chain can be deemed as conscious cooperation enabling the flow of medical supplies from the manufacturer to the end user. Starting from the manufacturer this could include vendors, distributors, warehouses, and the supply room in a hospital.  

Supply chain collaboration in hospitals can improve the quality of care and maintain it while ensuring adequate medical supplies are in stock. Moreover, collaborative healthcare supply chain management streamlines the entire process, reducing medical errors.  

The healthcare supply chain collaboration benefits not just the hospitals, distributors, or manufacturers but the industry itself. Despite this fact, healthcare clings behind other industries regarding collaborative supply chain management.  

Significance of Healthcare Supply Chain Management

The importance of healthcare supply chain collaboration is quite evident—it improves patient care and safety while curbing unnecessary waste and spending. Also, the main objective lies in increasing the efficiency of the supply chain and improving the agility of the entire process.  

In today’s world where there is uncertainty and volatility all around, it is vital to monitor the supply and demand conditions. Moreover, the collaborative healthcare supply chain must be able to detect the hold-ups and manage the possible disruptions.  

The main agenda of the collaborative healthcare supply chain is to provide a seamless flow of medical supplies, equipment, and services from the manufacturer to the patients. The process can be expedited through digital tools monitoring and supporting the disruptions. Multi-sourced data can help to optimize the supply chain process and the insights can be of utmost value too.  

How to Improve Healthcare Supply Chain?

Healthcare has realized how exigent it is to have smooth supply chain integration, one that minimizes expenditures and increases savings. An optimal functioning healthcare supply chain will be resilient to disruptions and improve patient care to the topmost level. Healthcare can focus on growth acceleration and overall productivity, provided that all other things are taken care of!  

Tips For Creating a Better Healthcare Supply Chain

• Taking clinicians on board can help improve the entire process by providing insights. They can help set up contracts and attain organizational goals through their first-hand experience. This approach can be made easy with the help of senior clinicians such as CCOs or CNOs.  
• Invest in a well-groomed team to take over the supply chain responsibilities. Supply chain professionals with clinical backgrounds can lead the domain with their expertise. Since several interactions could take place revolving around clinical products, certain procedures, and contract details, it’s imperative to trust a well-versed person.  
• Attainable organizational goals can carve a pathway for a seamless supply chain. Often the departments feel that the supply chain is concerned more with the savings than the organizational goals. To combat this, a more friendly approach could involve joint team savings, incentives for achieving targets, and submission of transparent reports.  
• Having trustworthy distributors can play a vital role too. There are many medical equipment distributors but the topmost and the reliable ones should be considered.  

Healthcare Supply Chain Management in Today’s World–Digitizing the Process

Technology has always been the core of improving processes and streamlining the journey. Digital transformation has cut costs by 50% and increased the revenue by 20% as per Harvard Business Review (Bestarion, Healthcare Supply Chain, ‘23).  

Healthcare supply chain data are now being transferred into ERP systems that increases the speed, visibility, and flexibility of it. The current ongoing transformation in the healthcare supply chain management has allowed the leaders to take control spanning from procurement leveraging to end users.  

Moreover, this transformation provides better visibility and real-time data sharing that improves the take on demand forecast. Allow seamless communication between supply partners. Ensures inventory management through enhanced collaborations. This approach ultimately drives better outcomes for the patients.  

The Healthcare Supply Chain is Different from Other Industries

Now the question arises what sets the healthcare supply chain apart from other industries? There are several factors contributing to distinguishing the healthcare supply chain from food, beverages, electronics, consumer goods, etc. Some key factors are listed below: 

• Patient-Centricity; of course, the approach here is patient centric as the goal is to provide them with excellent care. Providing equipment and services that ensure top-notch patient care, hence no delays van be granted.
   
• Short Lifespan of Drugs; a lot of drugs and vaccines have a short life span, therefore delivering them at the right place and at the right time is of utmost priority.
   
• Regulatory Compliance; since the healthcare industry is the most sensitive of all, having patients to attend at the end of the loop. Therefore, the regulatory department has the most significant requirements in ensuring patient safety.
   
• Sensitive Products; the healthcare industry has precise requirements for the storage of drugs. Hence, the storage temperature must be as per the guidelines.  

Supply Chain Issue in the Healthcare Sector

Few factors should be considered as they have the potential to disrupt the cycle of the supply chain. These can cause unforeseen interruptions and sometimes catering to them at the right time becomes inevitable.  

• Emergency Readiness or Unforeseen Demand; seasonal variations, breakouts, and unpredicted emergencies call for inconsistent demand for certain supplies. Sometimes meeting the demand becomes difficult whereas in some other cases excess of supplies adds to the unnecessary wastage of the products.
   
• Quality Control; sometimes quality control becomes a task for medical providers. Lacking the quality check of the supplies results in medicine returns, treatment delays, and regulatory fines.
   
• Visibility Issues; due to lack of visibility the planning could be hindered as one can hardly track the supplies. This could result in challenging situations because of unwanted supply disruptions and inadequate planning.  

Bottom-line

Finding your dream job with leading healthcare providers could be one of the finest achievements you could think of. However, what goes behind the curtains is commendable. Be it the stress of providing the best services to the patients or having a robust collaborative supply chain ensuring the availability of supplies, equipment to the patients—healthcare is a sensitive industry to be a part of!  

It’s a sector of national importance and stronger, better supply chains means adequate preparation for the next pandemic or emergency.  

Also Read: Snoring: When Should You See a doctor?