How COVID-19 has disrupted pharmacy leaders' supply chains

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists is taking biweekly surveys of pharmacy leaders across the country on how their supply chains have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The second survey, conducted between March 23 and March 26, was released April 3 and details how hospital pharmacy supply has changed since the first survey, conducted March 9- March 15. 

The first-round survey had 403 respondents, and the second-round survey had 382 respondents, both from hospitals of various sizes around the country.

5 takeaways from the second-round survey: 

  1. Forty-two percent of respondents said the disruption in supplies of surgical masks was either major or moderate, meaning they either had to go without masks or use alternatives. That's a 27 percentage point increase from the first survey.

  2. Ninety-five percent of respondents said their organizations have a plan to conserve medical masks, up from 84 percent in the first survey. Eighty-one percent say they've already had to implement the plan.

  3. Among the respondents whose organizations perform sterile compounding activities, 58 percent said they've had to reuse masks for sterile compounding, and 6 percent are using non-FDA approved masks.

  4. Twenty-eight percent of respondents have requested personal protective equipment from the national stockpile, and of those, 53 percent received the requested supplies.

  5. Thirty-three percent of respondents reported higher acquisition costs for masks compared to December 2019, up 14 percent from the first-round survey.
 

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