WORCESTER — UMass Memorial Health Care has a three-month stockpile of personal protective equipment in preparation for the upcoming flu season and a possible second wave of the coronavirus.
Dr. Kimiyoshi Kobayashi, chief quality officer at UMass Memorial Medical Center, said they are wary of a second COVID-19 surge coming on top of the flu season.
“It’s a little hard to predict what effects factors such as social distancing, use of masks, decreased travel, and decreased in-person school attendance will have on the volume of flu that we see during this year’s season,” Kobayashi said. “It might be possible that we have a milder than normal flu season which would be great. We will not be able to differentiate easily whether a patient has flu or COVID-19 and thus having fewer patients with flu symptoms would significantly help the strain on our healthcare system.”
Henry Lopez, director of supply chain logistics for UMass Memorial Medical Center, said close to 20,000-square-feet of PPE is being stored in a 51,000-square-foot distribution center off campus.
“We’re averaging about three months-plus of inventory on our PPE that would have been part of our initial COVID response,” Lopez said. “This includes things like hand sanitizer, gowns, masks, face shields, respiratory supplies, and so forth.”
When UMass went into testing and treating for the coronavirus, the medical center had a very large amount of N-95 masks, ear loop masks and gowns, Lopez said.
“Our typical inventory value pre-COVID was somewhere around $1.7 million. Right now, we have $10.5 million in our inventory, so the healthcare system has made a tremendous investment on inventory regarding any pandemic or emergency or disaster that could come up,” Lopez said. “We never ran out of PPE when it came down through the whole thing. We always had N-95s. We had the ear loop masks. We had gowns.”
That doesn’t mean that UMass didn’t scramble to bring more PPE supplies during the pandemic, Lopez said.
“We certainly spent a lot of nights late, working with China and working with our partners to bring more supplies in. But our supply chain was always strong enough and deep enough that we didn’t run out,” Lopez said. “During COVID, our N-95 usage probably went up more than tenfold. And that’s not what was coming in from our supplier base but because of the amount we had in our inventory, we were able to offset that.”
Prior to COVID-19, UMass would use about 17,000 isolation gowns a month; however, during the height of COVID, they were using 7,000 a day, Lopez said.
“We were north of a million ear loop masks and we issued probably more than 700,000 throughout the whole COVID event,” Lopez said. “So, we’ve gone through a tremendous amount of inventory.”
Lopez said having a three-month supply of PPE available is the “new norm.” He said they will be reordering supplies through their supply chain at the rate they are using it in an effort to maintain a three-month supply at all times.
“Our mandate is to maintain a three-month level of inventory at COVID levels, not at normal operating levels,” Lopez said. “So, our supply chain will have orders and be able to supply us whatever burn rate we’re burning, unless something happens where the supply chain gets disrupted by other events. But we have orders in place already for the fall.”
Lopez said his team of about 100 people has spent the entire summer preparing for the flu season and a potential second wave of the coronavirus.
“We have moved millions of pieces of PPE. Our team has not really had any down time. You don’t build a $10 million-plus inventory without people,” Lopez said. “There are people on my staff that have worked 80 days straight. A lot of our per diems are retired folks that stepped up and could have been in harm’s way because of what we were doing. … We’ve been able to build inventory in a time when people are still struggling to be able to get supplies. That is what I am most proud of.”
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