Lessons learned from shortage of children’s cold, flu medicine to create strong supply chain

By Christine Donaldson

With cold and flu season still a few months away, HealthPRO Canada is building on lessons learned from last year’s critical shortage of children’s cold and flu medications to protect Canadian patients from a return of similar supply disruptions.

As Canada’s leader in healthcare procurement, we took immediate action when we learned of the imminent shortage of children’s cold and flu medications stemming from higher-than-expected cases of viruses, coupled with a surge in purchasing in community settings.

In partnership with Johnson & Johnson Australia, HealthPRO implemented a supply agreement to bring Tylenol™ for Babies to Canada which was made immediately available to over 1,300 healthcare facilities across the country and we facilitated supply to hospital pharmacies to lessen the burden on parents and caregivers in the community. In addition to helping bring in the foreign supply, we also entered into supply agreements with domestic suppliers to increase the availability of Canadian-labelled product to our hospitals.

The silver lining of being confronted by the crisis is that we are now better prepared to work with our health system partners to avert future shortages of critical medications for vulnerable populations like children.

Here are the top lessons we are building on from our work addressing last year’s shortage of children’s cold and flu medications:

National Reach Gives Us Power

HealthPRO Canada’s strong partnerships, national scope and global connections allow us to move quickly to find solutions – as we demonstrated through our ability to secure paediatric cold and flu medicine from international partners.

It’s also because of our national reach and expertise that HealthPRO Canada has been selected as the only hospital procurement agency to sit on a newly formed Health Products Supply Chain Advisory Committee created by Health Canada to further improve our ability to prevent and mitigate shortages.

Innovative Procurement Practices Strengthen Our Supply Chain

As part of our commitment to pursue world-class procurement practices, we are changing how we categorize and procure key paediatric medicines to better guard against shortages. We are looking at awarding multiple formats and more than one supplier for paediatric-specific products to create a more resilient supply chain for this vulnerable population of patients, a strat-

Christine Donaldson, President and CEO, HealthPRO Canada

egy we use across many other critical medication categories.

We are carrying on the torch from Health Canada in continuing a National Drug Reserve Program for vulnerable medications, such as sole source drugs, those with a history of shortages, and medications that don’t have alternatives. Our program will guarantee a pre-determined percentage of excess inventory for healthcare facilities to use during surge demand helping to avert interruptions in patient care.

Preparation Is Key

We are developing a Healthcare Procurement Crisis Playbook to address future disaster planning including communications protocols and best procurement and contracting practices to mitigate the impacts of future disasters and supply chain disruptions, implementing best-in-class global practices.

Earlier Warning Of Supply Disruptions Is Needed

HealthPRO Canada recognizes the power of data in driving informed decision-making. Our network provides us unique visibility and access to this critical information regionally and nationally across our Canadian supply.

We are taking action to drive insights from the data we collect to reduce the impact of drug shortages for all patients, including children. The best way to mitigate the impacts of disruptions that cannot be averted is for suppliers to provide early warning and accurate up-to-date information to us – this allows other partners in the chain to prepare proper contingency plans.

While it may not be possible to eliminate all supply disruptions, HealthPRO Canada is leading a stronger, more-resilient supply chain based on what we learned from working with our healthcare partners to navigate last year’s shortage of paediatric cold and flu medicine. n H