While COVID-19 had a major impact on global logistics, challenges in the medical product supply chain were already present before the pandemic made things worse. Now with fuel costs rising, overseas shipping delays and labor shortages throughout every industry, managing your medical product supply chain has become more difficult than ever, especially in the face of these major challenges:
- Patient-Centric Supply Chains
- Resilience Requirement for Medical Supplies
- Decentralized Medical Equipment
- Vaccination Campaign Logistics
To understand these challenges and the best ways to resolve them, let’s break them down a little further.
Patient-Centric Supply Chains
Healthcare in the U.S. is changing because people with chronic health conditions have become more interested in self-care. They want to avoid doctor offices, hospitals and even pharmacies if they can. This has become even more prevalent because of COVID-19.
As e-commerce continues to evolve, patients expect the same innovation from the medical industry. They want quick and convenient delivery with as little in-person interaction as possible. This is putting a strain on pharmaceutical and medical supply retailers who’ve been more dependent on physical retail locations as a primary distribution center.
This new dependence on home delivery means investment in improved planning, inventory management and order fulfillment.
Resilience Requirement for Medical Supplies
When COVID-19 halted production of key medical supplies like masks, gloves and syringes – supplies that were often taken for granted due to their common availability – it forced hospitals and medical offices to examine the best way to improve the resiliency of their medical supplies.
Supply chain disruptions and an influx of low-quality of counterfeit supplies created a demand for new guidelines on how to reuse certain supplies and equipment.
To mitigate future disruptions, you need increased visibility into inventory to ensure your supply chain is more resilient and secure.
Decentralized Medical Equipment
Patients that require regular treatments for chronic illness or rehabilitation for recovery are more likely to adhere to their doctors’ orders if they can do it home. In addition to better adherence and faster recovery times, keeping patients out of hospitals results in better health outcomes and lower costs for payers.
Moving treatment away from hospitals to patient homes or care facilities like nursing homes means providing access to important medical equipment outside of the hospital. Therapeutic and durable medical equipment like dialysis equipment, CPAP machines and ventilators can be issued out while remaining connected to medical offices via the cloud.
By delivering valuable medical equipment to patient homes or other decentralized locations, you need a solution that can efficiently and accurately track and manage their distribution.
Vaccination Campaign Logistics
Whether it’s influenza, COVID-19 or a future viral pathogen, testing and vaccination is a monumental task that’s almost impossible to accomplish. Choices have to be made to prioritize groups based on their vulnerability or risk of infection.
Mass vaccination campaigns have to be designed and implemented requiring major logistical planning. Only through accurate and efficient tracking of testing equipment and vaccines can this be possible.
Managing Today’s Medical Logistics Challenges
Providing a simple solution to these challenges isn’t easy, but it is possible. All you have to do is adopt an inventory tracking solution that can help you manage and track your assets quickly, accurately and efficiently.
PortalTrack by MSM Solutions offers a more efficient way of tracking and managing your medical supply inventory. Using RFID technology – tags, scanners, portals and antennas – you can automate your inventory management process for accurate, real-time tracking.
This means you know exactly what you have and where it’s located while it’s still on-site.
The core benefits of using PortalTrack to improve your medical supply inventory tracking and management include:
- Reduced operational costs.
- Increased supply chain efficiency.
- Improved total cost of ownership.
- Backed by MSM Solutions support.
To learn more about how PortalTrack can benefit your healthcare operations, click here to get more information on how you can manage your medical supply inventory and equipment more efficiently.
Then when you’re ready to see how it works, give us a call. We’re happy to walk you through customized solutions or give you a free demo so you can see firsthand how MSM Solutions can help you.
