Supply Chain Challenges

Beginning with the global COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, health systems have faced recurring supply chain disruptions that put pressure on both operations and patient care. These included:

• Frequent backorders and limited original equipment manufacturer (OEM) product availability
• Increased workload on inventory analysts and clinical staff to respond quickly
• Delays and lack of visibility in ordering and delivery
• Dependence on large manufacturers and primary distributors, resulting in slow response times and limited transparency

It is important for health systems to recognize these risks and seek sustainable solutions to strengthen our supply chains by building relationships beyond just primary vendors/distributors.

Sourcing Approach

To help navigate these challenges and to build long-term resilience, health systems are building partnerships with secondary suppliers that offer high value and availability of products. This is not just a quick sourcing fix but an organization-wide commitment to long-term collaboration, not just transactional exchanges.

By integrating key third party vendors into sourcing resilience workflow, health systems can empower their supply chain teams to act swiftly during disruptions — bypassing unnecessary layers of approval and ensuring rapid response.

Distinct Capabilities

Through my sourcing and value analysis experience over the past few years working with secondary suppliers, I have developed a set of standards that are important when selecting your vendors. These key attributes and strengths have helped deliver needed products during shortages, product discontinuations, and other disruptions.

• Rapid identification and sourcing of hard-to-find OEM products
• Deep expertise in OEM sourcing and disruption management
• Real-time order tracking and proactive communication
• Invoicing only after confirmed delivery
• A dedicated logistics specialist for each shipment
• Reduced need for escalation to leadership during shortages
• Full integration into supply chain workflows

This proactive approach has streamlined decision-making, reduced last-minute crisis management, and maintained clinician confidence in supply availability.

“A true vendor partner will provide reliable ETAs, precise tracking, and consistent follow-up that gives our clinicians true psychological safety, especially when we’re at zero on a product and have a procedure scheduled.”

Operational Impact

Your secondary vendor partnerships must deliver measurable improvements for your health system, and they should be considered more long-term versus a one-time event. Think, multi-year partnerships that will enable your health system to evolve from a reactive supply chain model to one that is proactive, integrated, and resilient. The measurable end results will be:

• Efficiency: Faster, independent action by inventory teams
• Assurance: Transparent, proactive communication that reassures clinicians and staff, and reduces, if not eliminates, clinician frustration from product substitutions and last-minute cancellations
• Scalability: A supply chain model that can be replicated across the health system

 “The level of communication your resilience partners provide makes all the difference. Your vendor partners must support your key requirements, ensure products arrive as promised, and communicate timelines clearly — even with things like urgent overnight requests. This deeper level of collaboration is essential to managing disruptions, avoiding last-minute crises, and strengthening our ability to care for patients.”

How Should a Health System Strategically Set Up Their Product Disruption Workflow?

These strategic objectives need to be incorporated into your health system’s product disruption workflow to enhance supply continuity, particularly during periods of scarcity. This process is not a “quick fix” but instead should be an extension of your ongoing value analysis and sourcing processes. Below are four best practices that you should consider implementing in your health system’s product disruption workflow:

1. Start with a Patient-Centered Focus. Start your product disruption process with a single question: What is the potential impact on the patient? Every disruption is prioritized based on clinical urgency and the capacity to maintain continuity of care. To support that principle, secondary sourcing alternatives are reviewed alongside primary distributor and GPO contracts rather than after the fact. By integrating your secondary suppliers into your initial tier of options, your health system can assess all possible pathways with the clinical end-user at the table and maintain alignment between cost, quality, and outcomes — even in a disruption situation.
2. Build Trust. Trust must be deliberately established long before disruptions occur. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many resilience vendors demonstrated consistent support and proven capability. As a result, clinical and supply chain stakeholders became comfortable engaging secondary suppliers as a vetted and dependable resource.
3. Formalize Resilience Vendors within the Disruption Playbook. Rather than simply calling ABC Vendor when you cannot find a product, make the decision to embed your resilience vendors into your official disruption mitigation playbook. This means you include your resilience vendors in the same decision tree used for GPO and primary distribution alternatives. Your disruption process will flow better because all vendors are participating in sourcing reviews for high-risk/hard-to-find categories. Clinical value analysis (CVA) teams can then be confident in managing clinical decisions within the process, ensuring product substitutions or alternative sourcing options that maintain clinical integrity and clinician buy-in. Remember, the reason you add your resilience vendors to your disruption process is that it will increase speed and accountability while protecting against supply interruptions.
4. Attain Solid Goals and Objectives. What is measured happens. You must set your baseline standards and track the true results which will give you even more trust that your process is working. What to look for would be a 50% or greater reduction in procedure delays and a 70% reduction in disruption escalations. Additionally, don’t overlook inventory performance — aim for up to a 75% improvement in product disruptions caused by unfilled purchase orders.

Looking Ahead

For health systems to consider a similar approach, the key is to be proactive. Don’t wait for the next shortage to evaluate alternative channels. Begin by engaging secondary resilience vendors with recognized and reliable track records. Then, align them to your clinical value analysis and contracting standards and clearly define where they sit in the sourcing hierarchy relative to your GPO and distribution partners. By doing so, healthcare organizations not only improve their resilience but also strengthen their ability to provide uninterrupted, high-quality patient care regardless of the external supply climate.

---

Article by:

Dr. Lobel Lurie, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, NPD-BC, CVAHP, FAHVAP, Fellow of the Association of Healthcare Value Analysis Professionals, Board-Certified in Value Analysis

Dr. Lobel Lurie is a seasoned healthcare leader whose clinical expertise drives excellence in supply chain and value analysis. With a strong foundation in nursing and executive leadership, she champions evidence-based decision-making to align product selection, standardization, and cost management with patient safety and operational efficiency. Her work focuses on evaluating clinical impact, optimizing utilization, and achieving value-driven outcomes that advance both quality and performance across healthcare organizations.

---

Articles you may like:

Do Hospital Supply Chains Turn to Subs Too Early Without First Checking for Original OEM Products?