Looking Ahead: Three Imperatives for Recovering Health Systems

By Thomas Perry, vice president and general manager, McKesson RxO

The year 2020 started like any other for hospital pharmacies, with a routine focus on ensuring that their shelves were stocked with the usual drugs and supplies. Then the world changed. COVID-19 reached the United States—and within weeks, patients infected with the novel coronavirus were packing hospital critical care units and fighting for their lives. Distributors and hospitals struggled to meet demand, taking lessons along the way to adapt and position themselves for recovery.

From the Hot Zone
St Joseph’s University Medical Center was one of the first US hot zones for the pandemic, with an intense spike in cases during March and April, according to Mike Cairoli, executive director of pharmacy and infusion services at St Joseph’s.

“Our emergency room was overrun with patients and we had a serious uptick in critical patients that needed ventilators. Finding room for them was a challenge, so we developed a lot of pop-up units in the hospital,” Mr Cairoli explained. “That patient volume, of course, trickled down to the pharmacy as the need increased for medications to treat critical patients. It was a big challenge.”

While hospitals dealt with the sudden patient influx caused by COVID-19, distributors confronted the challenge of maintaining a steady supply of essential products and medications to treat a disease that seemed almost invincible. The need for ventilators and drugs to keep ventilated patients sedated was clear. But the uncertainty of how to care for other critically ill COVID-19 patients caused hospital pharmacies across the country to order supplies without a clear sense of direction or clinically based guidance. Traditional ways of keeping pace with demand were no match for the escalating situation. The only choice was to find creative ways of meeting these unprecedented challenges.

Establishing a COVID-19 Task Force

Quickly adapting to the present and urgent need, our team assembled a Critical Care Drug Task Force to collect and analyze data in order to track the spread and intensity of the disease in comparison to customer purchasing trends. Team members included former pharmacists, procurements specialists, and administrators, providing an invaluable advantage in understanding the different drugs and supply volumes sought by hospitals.

The group reviewed thousands of drugs in demand on the front line, as well as in secondary and tertiary treatments, to forecast those that hospital pharmacies needed to keep in stock. The key to success for the task force was maintaining open and ongoing dialogues with customers. By sharing a clinical perspective with pharmacists, the team helped alleviate fears of inventory shortages, providing assurance that hospital pharmacy shelves would be stocked despite the COVID-19 patient surge.

Post-pandemic Recovery

While hospitals remain on the front lines of the pandemic, looking forward to recovery when the fight is still raging is difficult. For the foreseeable future, hospitals must be able to treat both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients, with the flexibility to manage and adapt to surges in the virus. At the same time, hospitals must develop strategies that reduce costs while continuing to provide quality care and meet the immediate needs of patients and healthcare providers.

Recovering hospitals need to consider these steps through COVID-19 and beyond:

• Prioritize operational efficiency—COVID-19 has caused significant financial strain on the healthcare industry; the American Hospital Association estimates at least $323.1 billion in losses to hospitals and health systems by the end of 2020. Rebounding from such losses will require hospitals to work closely with their business partners, including distributors, to remove external inefficiencies in the supply chain and streamline internal operations.
• Prepare for more patients needing financial assistance—The economy is still reeling from the effects of COVID-19, and unemployment has resulted in widespread loss of health insurance. Hospitals must take advantage of all available financial and medication assistance programs to support patients who need help.
• Expand clinical services to improve patient care—Offering services to the community like flu vaccines and future COVID-19 vaccines is a natural way to expand services. Healthcare providers should stay alert for similar opportunities to offer services that improve community health.

The Importance of Powerful Partnerships

For St Joseph’s, a meaningful partnership with their pharmaceutical distributor is crucial moving forward.  

“We need a proactive approach to the supply chain that goes beyond hopping on the computer to order what we need, when we need it. McKesson understands St Joe’s and can forecast what we will need and work with drug companies to meet the demand,” Mr Cairoli shared.

Customers should indeed expect more from their partners as a result of lessons learned during the pandemic. Distributors must continue to leverage innovations such as the Critical Care Drug Task Force and use clinical expertise to help health systems make informed purchasing decisions. By anticipating availability and certain uncontrollable constraints, as well as identifying alternatives to products in short supply, distributors will serve as trusted partners to recovering hospitals.

“The most important thing,” added Mr Cairoli, “is that people know hospitals are here to help; they’re safe. If people need health care, they can and should come to St Joe’s or their local hospital. Our mission is to take care of patients, and we’re very good at it. With the support of a great partner, we have everything we need to take care of patients, whether it’s COVID or non-COVID—that’s really why we’re here.”