opinion
“The Trump administration’s plan to distribute vaccines is falling behind — far behind,” Joe Biden, Dec. 29, 2020
Currently, shots are not getting into the arms of those in need quickly enough throughout the U.S.
North Carolina is one of the worst in the nation (46th), with only 40% of the doses that were received having been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine distribution tracker.
The Biden Administration will have to hit the ground running regarding the pandemic. Operation Warp Speed did an excellent job of partnering with the private sector to quickly develop vaccines for COVID-19.
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However, according to many experts, our vaccine delivery response to the crisis has been uncoordinated and ineffective. The new administration would do well to partner with supply chain organizations that have the expertise to help.
I went to work at San Diego based American Healthcare Systems in 1986 as Vice President of Planning. It was then the second largest healthcare alliance in the nation. In 1995, a new CEO took over, and I sent him a comprehensive report detailing the benefits of a merger with the third largest alliance, Premier, located in Chicago. He contacted their CEO and they began discussions. By the end of that year, the fourth largest alliance, SunHealth in Charlotte, also agreed to merge with us.
I was heavily involved in the merger and headed the committee to title the new organization. We recommended that we use the Premier name, creating the largest hospital alliance supply chain company in the nation. Premier Inc. eventually moved its headquarters to Charlotte and now describes itself as a “healthcare improvement company uniting an alliance of approximately 4,100 U.S. hospitals and health systems and more than 200,000 other providers and organizations.”
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I left my position as Premier’s VP of Development in 2000. In the last 20 years, the organization has prospered and gone public. Among many other functions, Premier is now purchasing tens of billion in supplies, pharmaceuticals and capital equipment annually for healthcare providers.
Last month, Premier recently issued a report entitled, “Supplies for COVID-19 Testing, Diagnostics and Treatment at Risk of Shortage.” In this report, the alliance points out a projected shortfall in supplies for “COVID-19 testing, diagnostics and treatment.”
Premier uses internally generated data among these hospitals to project that there will be a shortage of sterile water, IV saline and similar supplies in the U.S. Some of their suppliers are indicating that the demand for saline has already doubled due to the virus.
Pipette tips are used to transfer liquids from one vial to another during testing. Premier members indicated that use has increased by 50% since May. The federal Food and Drug Administration has noted the shortage and that the lead time to get an order has increased from almost immediate to nearly a month.
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And of course, there are still the continuing shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), including isolation gowns, surgical masks, exam gloves and N95 respirators. On the positive side, Premier indicates that based on its data the nation is now better prepared for the current spike than it was last summer.
Our COVID-19 response under the Trump Administration has amazed the world … and not in a good way. As was true in vaccine development, our private sector must be involved in planning, including making sure that supply shortages do not become an impediment to making progress in fighting the pandemic.
Jack Bernard is the former director of Health Planning for Georgia and a retired high-level executive with a healthcare corporation. He was one of the founders of Premier, Inc. in Charlotte. He is a widely published health reform columnist.
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