As the healthcare sector continues to evolve, supply chains need to evolve with it. For businesses operating within the chain, that means being able to adapt to changing needs and priorities.

The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, exposed a need for greater resilience. Cost pressures, technological developments, and structural shifts in how healthcare is delivered to patients are also all having an impact. For those businesses aiming to be an integral part of the overall supply chain, it’s important to stay up-to-date and ensure their capabilities fit with new requirements.

With that in mind, here are three ways in which healthcare supply chains could evolve – and how you can ensure you align with them.

One lasting consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a reappraisal of the supply chain, which is now being seen more strategically. Two-thirds of healthcare executives say they now have a better perception of its impact on the overall healthcare system.¹

As a result of that – and of lessons learned during the pandemic – there are calls to build more resilient healthcare supply chains. This includes having greater visibility and control over them, and increasing the focus on sustainability.²

According to Deloitte, those organisations within the chain that are prepared for unpredictable events, and are able to recover from them, could gain a competitive advantage.³

Demands for a more resilient supply chain overall mean it’s a good idea to consider how you could strengthen your own individual operations. For example, focusing on your reliability could be important. That can mean taking steps to ensure you can be consistent – in everything from product quality to on-time deliveries. It can also mean ensuring you have strong tracking and monitoring capabilities so customers can feel confident that any issues during delivery can be resolved.

The way you communicate with customers can also have an impact on your reliability. One example is to make sure you set appropriate expectations initially, and another is putting strong support operations in place that can resolve any issues customers may have.⁴ Getting these right can help influence how reliable you are seen to be and help build trust.

There’s more you could do to help build resilience, including sharpening up your cybersecurity, diversifying your supply base and building up contingency stocks of key materials. Watch our video to learn more about building a more resilient supply chain for your own business.

There is a continuing trend to move certain elements of healthcare provision out of clinical settings and into the home or retail locations.⁵ While this is partly driven by a desire to alleviate strain on frontline locations⁶, a significant proportion of consumers say they are comfortable with receiving certain healthcare outside of a traditional healthcare location.⁷

In fact, a separate survey puts the proportion of consumers that are willing to access healthcare services in non-healthcare facilities at 66%, with 60% willing to be treated in a ‘hospital-in-the-home’ programme.⁸

While this move may be beneficial, it poses challenges for providers because the provision of healthcare services – anything from equipment and medicines to the growing trend for individually tailored therapies – at increasing numbers of locations can make for a much more complex supply chain.⁹

If supply and distribution networks become more complex, it’s likely that flexibility will be a key component in catering to them effectively. Being able to adapt production quickly or, from a logistics perspective, being able to respond to changing delivery schedules and locations could be important.

For certain shipments, how you maintain product integrity during transportation is also worth considering, particularly if those products are being delivered in smaller consignments to non-clinical settings. Make sure you ship with providers that can offer a range of capabilities to ensure products arrive safely and at the time they are supposed to.

Healthcare budgets in Europe are under strain, pressured by factors including rising prices, population growth, an ageing population and a weak macroeconomic environment,^{10, 11} while public health spending across OECD countries is expected to reach 20.6% of government revenues by 2040.¹²

In this context, finding efficiencies is likely to become even more important. And supply chains could be a good place to find them. Figures suggest that they account for an estimated 25% of the cost of pharmaceuticals and 40% of medical device budgets.¹³

If healthcare providers are looking for efficiencies and cost savings, then making your own operations as cost-efficient as possible could be a smart move.

Utilising business software to help you automate certain time-consuming tasks – including shipping processes – may be beneficial, helping you to become more efficient and make fewer mistakes.

Or you could consider how you could adopt new technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) into your supply chain, which could help you to boost productivity, improve decision making and optimise inventory management. Research shows that 46% of companies in the healthcare sector are using AI to identify and address potential disruptions in their supply chains, while 35% are using it to forecast demand and 34% say it is helping them to reduce the overall costs of trade operations.¹⁴