The healthcare industry rapidly embraced innovative solutions to navigate unprecedented supply chain challenges amid COVID-19. However, as the pandemic waned, so too has the pace of innovation, one supply chain expert told the Association of National Account Executives.
Critical supply shortages and rising costs during the public health crisis spurred supply chain teams to embrace more creative procurement strategies, expand supplier relationships and accelerate the modernization and digitization of supply chain operations, according to GHX.
Though calls to improve supply chain resilience magnified in the wake of the pandemic, progress on these efforts has slowed, according to Eugene Schneller, PhD, a professor of supply chain management at Arizona State University's W. P. Carey School of Business in Tempe.
"When the pressure's off, you don't pay as much attention to those as you did in the past. Notably, we still don't have provider systems that have resilience in their mission statements or as part of their governance processes," he told the Association of National Account Executives.
The pandemic also required a high level of collaboration and visibility between suppliers and providers. Organizations must work to sustain and build on these successful partnerships, according to Dr. Schneller.
"Much sharing of data happened during COVID. When the crisis goes away, how do we sustain collaboration? Putting governance structures in place to assure access to and equitable allocation of critical products is important," he told ANAE. "Resilience is important. Providers knowing how suppliers are managing their upstream risk is critical to great partnerships."