Medication Management and Supply Chain Still Underwater: Challenges and Future Trends in Health Care

The health care industry continues to face significant challenges in managing medications and ensuring an efficient supply chain. Rising costs, natural disasters, complex regulatory requirements, and technological advancements have created an environment of uncertainty in which hospitals and health care providers must navigate a rapidly shifting landscape.

Challenges

Intravenous Supply Shortages

One of health care's most urgent challenges is the persistent shortage of intravenous (IV) supplies. These shortages, worsened by natural disasters and manufacturing disruptions, have forced hospitals to ration their resources. A recent turning point came after Hurricane Helene in September 2024, which led to the shutdown of the largest IV manufacturing plant in the US, a facility in Marion, North Carolina, responsible for producing approximately 60% of the nation’s IV fluids.¹ This closure severely strained the supply chain, with some hospitals postponing elective surgeries due to the lack of critical supplies. Although the FDA has authorized emergency imports to alleviate the crisis, the situation exposes significant global medical supply chain vulnerabilities.

Health Care System Complexity

The increasing complexity of health care systems—particularly due to mergers and the expansion of large health care networks—presents operational challenges. The rising cost of goods, centralized purchasing, and intricate corporate structures can slow decision-making, making it harder to swiftly address shortages and implement new policies. Hospitals that are part of larger networks may struggle with coordinating purchases and ensuring the right supplies reach the right locations in a timely manner, which can negatively impact patient safety and satisfaction.

New Treatments and Pricing Issues

Innovative treatments are poised to revolutionize health care, but their implementation has significant hurdles. For example, gene therapies have the potential to drastically transform patient outcomes, bringing hope to patients with rare or previously untreatable diseases. However, the cost of these therapies is difficult to assess. This uncertainty makes it challenging for health care providers and payers to integrate new therapies into their systems while maintaining affordability and access. Complications with pricing and access are true across various advanced treatments.

Navigating Regulatory Changes: Drug Supply Chain Security Act Compliance

There are significant regulatory hurdles and considerations for stakeholders to consider when it comes to navigating the ever-changing health care landscape. The Drug Supply Chain Security Act (DSCSA) was introduced to ensure the quality and safety of medications across the supply chain. However, many hospitals fall short of meeting full compliance with its standards.² Despite being passed in 2013, compliance deadlines have consistently been delayed, and waivers have been granted to give manufacturers and hospitals more time to comply. Ultimately, the DSCSA represents a critical opportunity to help mitigate future disruptions in the availability of critical medical supplies, and hospitals must abide by these industry regulations to improve medication traceability and safeguard the supply chain.

Potential Solutions

The challenges facing the health care industry are vast but not insurmountable. Two significant shifts can help address issues such as increasing health care complexity, demands for increased visibility due to regulations, and supply chain disruptions.

Enhanced Collaboration

Fostering partnerships and the integration of data between health care providers, manufacturers, and distributors can significantly improve communication and transparency throughout the supply chain. Several approaches, such as collaborative forecasting, can enhance collaboration between stakeholders. Collaborative forecasting involves pooling resources to analyze historical usage patterns, seasonal trends, and potential disruptions, allowing for more accurate predictions and preemptive actions. By sharing data and insights in this manner, stakeholders can better anticipate demand fluctuations and supply constraints.

Sharing critical information across integrated supply chain networks encourages collaboration among all parties, from manufacturers to end-users. This integration can help create a more resilient supply chain by enabling rapid responses to shortages and disruptions. For example, a hospital could quickly alert suppliers about increasing demand for specific IV supplies, allowing manufacturers to adjust production schedules accordingly.

Collaboration can also be closely tied to communication approaches most people are very familiar with, such as regular meetings between organizations or teams. Regular and consistent communication, such as biweekly or monthly check-ins between health care providers and suppliers, can foster stronger relationships and facilitate quicker problem-solving. These channels can also help maintain transparency about inventory levels and upcoming supply challenges.

Leveraging Technology

Investing in advanced technologies can refine medication management and enhance supply chain efficiency. More sophisticated inventory management solutions, like those using RFID technology, can help health care providers gain real-time visibility of their stock levels across multiple locations. Paired with holistic supply chain management (SCM) solutions that can synchronize demand and supply from the point of use all the way upstream to distributors and manufacturers, these systems can automate reordering processes, provide alerts for low stock, and track usage patterns, reducing inventory excesses but ensuring that critical medications are always available.

An additional technology with very tangible impacts on the health care supply chain is blockchain. It has the potential to enhance the traceability of medications from manufacturers to end-users, helping supply chains be more transparent, efficient, and resilient by recording transactions in a tamper-proof ledger. This ledger records transactions in blocks, creating a secure and immutable record of exchanges where multiple copies of each transaction are recorded. This makes it easy to detect attempts to alter records and allows all parties to read the data source. Consumer packaged goods retailers such as Walmart are exploring this technology and the health care industry may benefit from learning from the results of this effort.

Trends to Watch in Health Care and Supply Chain Management

The Rise of Radio-Frequency Identification Technology and Supply Chain Management

In concert with DSCSA compliance and the need for more effective medication traceability is the rise of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID-powered systems are gaining momentum in health care, particularly in tracking high-risk medications, because they allow hospitals to manage medications more effectively, reducing errors and ensuring critical supplies are available. Although systems implementing RFID are currently focused on enabling the tracking of specific medications, the long-term goal is to integrate this technology across all products and systems. Full-scale implementation would allow seamless management of supplies from procurement to patient care, ultimately improving efficiency and patient safety.

Consolidation and Ambulatory Care

The trend of consolidation in health care is expected to continue, with systems merging to create more robust networks. At the same time, there is a shift toward outpatient care and online and specialty pharmacy services. This move toward more ambulatory care settings aligns with broader efforts to reduce hospital admissions and provide more cost-effective, patient-centered care.

Gene Therapy and Biotechnology

The rise of gene therapy and other biotechnological treatments will significantly alter the health care landscape in the coming years. However, challenges remain in the manufacturing and subsequent integration of these therapies into existing health care structures. These treatments offer unprecedented potential to improve patient outcomes, but health care systems will need to ensure they are priced fairly and made available to those who need them.

About the Authors

Amir Emamifar, PharmD, MBA, is vice president and chief pharmacy officer at Temple University Health System in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Paulo Viola is vice president, Data Science Solutions at Intelliguard.

Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

Automated or artificial intelligence (AI) has strong potential to reshape healthcare. Although AI is not yet fully integrated into the day-to-day operations of most health care systems, its power is already being explored. For providers, AI can assist with the management of patient populations and improve disease treatment strategies. Pharmaceutical research and development may also benefit from AI, potentially accelerating the discovery of new treatments and therapies. These are just a couple of examples among multiple opportunities being explored in the exponentially fast-growing field of AI.

Life Jacket Forward

The future of health care supply chains depends on our ability to innovate and adapt, paving the way for improved patient outcomes and a more sustainable health care system.By focusing on collaboration and leveraging technology, hospitals and health care providers can navigate the complexities of today's health care landscape with greater agility and resilience. Adopting these solutions will be crucial in optimizing operational efficiency while ensuring patients receive the medications and care they need without interruption.