The American Hospital Association laid out five steps Congress should take to stabilize the U.S. medical supply chain during a May 19 Senate hearing:
- Diversify medical supply manufacturing sites and sources of raw materials. The U.S. relies heavily on both China and India for the raw materials it needs to make medical devices and prescription drugs. This poses "significant risks to patients and healthcare workers" if a disruption in the supply chain occurs, as it did at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Congress needs to create initiatives for more manufacturing sites for medical supplies and pharmaceutical ingredients.
- Support advancements in technology used to reuse and reprocess medical supplies. Efforts to reuse or repurpose medical supplies, such as masks, were critical when supplies have been scarce during the pandemic. Investing in technologies to reuse and repurpose supplies can help providers to navigate future supply shortages and decrease the amount of waste created by single-use devices.
- Incentivize the development of supplies that can be made without raw materials sourced in the U.S. This will increase the reliability and long-term sustainability of domestic supplies.
- Develop data standards to help detect supply shortages early. Adopting data standards and computeried supply systems can enhance inventory management, transparency and help identify supply shortages early.. This would help identify the issue before it significantly affects patient care, such as having to cancel or delay nonemergent procedures.
- Put an end to the "just-in-time" approach. The just-in-time approach to supply chain logistics is outdated and steps need to be taken to make sure enough product is available, or capable of being made available, when demand increases. Supporting an increase in end-user inventory of critical supplies will help add necessary capacity to the existing supply chain and decrease the need for large national and state stockpiles.
"Hospitals and the communities they serve rely on adequate access to lifesaving supplies and medications, and without substantial steps to strengthen the current framework, future health emergencies will result in the same shortfall our country recently experienced," the association wrote in a statement to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Read the full statement here.