Some of the crucial challenges faced by the Healthcare Supply Chain are Data shortages, Hidden costs, Overnight shipping, and Drug shortages.
FREMONT, CA: Monitoring the healthcare supply chain involves tracking products from origin to destination, but many of these supplies can be life or death. Managing the medical supply chain contributes significantly to high healthcare costs as well.
It is for this reason that optimizing the medical supply chain is so important. An optimized supply chain allows healthcare providers to obtain prescription drugs, medical devices, and other goods at lower costs, increase revenues, and, most importantly, provide better care. In order to optimize the supply chain, providers should address the following challenges:
Shipping overnight: Overnight shipping is a necessity in the healthcare industry. No matter what the cost, hospitals must respond to emergencies. One or two overnight orders will not negatively affect a provider's profit margin, but regular overnight orders will.
Other than emergencies, poor inventory management is a major cause of overnight deliveries. By using the right software, overnight shipments can be limited to emergencies only.
Shortages of drugs: Supply chain disruptions seem to be increasing drug shortages in healthcare. Shortages force providers to either purchase more expensive alternatives or maintain a backup inventory of at-risk products, resulting in higher inventory management costs.
Using drug supply chain monitoring software, providers can avoid getting caught off guard by sudden disruptions in supply chains and track and plan around long-standing shortages of hundreds of drugs.
