November 16, 2022 – From Jesse Schafer’s vantage point as a senior manager of business continuity at the Mayo Clinic, supply chain resiliency is keenly needed in healthcare. “It’s a complex issue too difficult to solve individually,” he said. “There are cultural, operational, and economic barriers.”
When asked what’s missing in the supply chain regarding resiliency and transparency, Schafer said standards, incentives, and culture.
- “There are too many solutions in the market. As such, trading partners cannot scale nor sustain the approach.”
- “Historically, price drives purchasing decisions. In a post pandemic world, providers are more often seeking to evaluate supplier resiliency as a key factor in sourcing decisions.”
- “There is a lack of trust when sharing resiliency data between trading partners, and a corresponding lack of clarity in how the data will be used.”
To help break down those gaps, a group of healthcare supply chain provider and supplier stakeholders recently formed the Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative (HIRC), a nonprofit healthcare supply chain association that champions standards and best practices in supply chain resiliency.
Read more in the cover story for the latest issue of Journal of Healthcare Contracting.