The Realities of Medical Supply Chain in 2022: Why We Have to be Resilient Now

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The Realities of Medical Supply Chain in 2022: Why We Have to be Resilient Now

To most people, the medical supply chain probably doesn’t seem overly complicated. If they ever take the time to think about it, they likely come up with four general categories which are involved in the process: manufacturers (drugmakers, scientists), distributors (wholesale, third-party logistics), providers (pharmacies, hospitals), and the patients. That covers every step from creation to delivery to prescription to consumption.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that many in the medical field looked at the supply chain in a similar way, and this thinking may have contributed to some of the major issues with shortages of PPEs, ventilators, and other supplies that we saw during the pandemic. While those basic functions hold true, there are factors that are often overlooked which can break the chain and cause delays and supply chain challenges. Often a distributor or provider doesn’t know where a manufacturer produces its products or sources its raw materials. A natural disaster or the outbreak of a war in another part of the world could disrupt the production of a needed drug or device without warning for those down the chain.

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