Supply Chain Advancement Network in Health (SCAN Health) is a not-forprofit corporation hosted by the Odette School of Business, University of Windsor.
In 2022, the Government of Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) awarded SCAN Health $2,489,160 over five years to develop a Community of Practice to advance health supply chain resilience, workforce sustainability and economic recovery in Canada’s post-pandemic future. With a network of over 80 multi-sectoral partner organizations and citizen advocacy groups from across Canada, SCAN Health will build a Community of Practice that designs, validates and scales collaborative supply chain solutions, practices and measurement tools to improve health system capacity to manage supply chain disruptions well into the future.
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Message from the Chair
Lynne Golding Chair
A Leap Forward to Building Health Supply Chain Resilience
It is my distinct pleasure to assume the role of Board Chair for SCAN Health. I am honoured to follow in the footsteps of my predecessor, Martha Huston, whose remarkable leadership ensured the successful launch of SCAN Health’s Community of Practice and the design of solutions that will strengthen health supply chain resilience in Canada. Martha’s leadership shaped an impressive foundation to support our work including an expert and committed Board of Directors, Strategic Advisory Council and robust partnerships that engage stakeholders in the public and private sectors, governments, manufacturing, health providers, citizens and academics to co-design essential solutions with our team. On behalf of the Board of Directors, I extend our heartfelt thanks for her outstanding leadership and exceptional results.
SCAN Health is continuing to make significant progress as we enter a critical phase to evaluate these health supply chain resilience solutions to ensure they achieve value for every health system stakeholder - first and foremost patients, our health workforce, domestic manufacturers, distributors and the pharmacy sector who provide essential health services and products to Canadians. This impressive achievement is due to the vital engagement of our many partners who have actively participated to shepherd the design and key features of these emerging solutions. During the next phase, our partners will pilot test these solutions in real world situations to ensure they achieve health supply chain resilience to manage the many supply chain disruptions and safeguard treatments patients require to sustain and restore their health.
On behalf of the Board of Directors, I extend our deep gratitude to the many partners that have generously contributed their time, expertise and unfailing commitment to ensure the success of the Community of Practice. I share the excitement of our Board, partners and team as we evaluate and test the emerging solutions to achieve health supply chain resilience. The role of our partners is essential as we drive toward a future state where these solutions are embedded and scaled to protect the lives of every Canadian.
Message from the Scientific Director & CEO
At the End of Health Supply Chain is Human Life
SCAN Health's Community of Practice has reached the pivotal halfway point in our five-year program of work to advance health supply chain resilience in Canada. The remarkable contributions of our partners continues to inspire progress toward our goal to design supply chain strategies that ensure every Canadian has access to the health services they need and every health team can access the products required to deliver sustainable, high quality health care. The capacity to achieve this goal is the direct result of the extraordinary commitment and tireless efforts of our Workgroup Leaders and partners. I am deeply grateful for their leadership and dedication to the relentless pursuit of supply chain strategies focused on overcoming supply disruptions and shortages and strengthening resilience across Canadian health systems.
Dr. Anne Snowdon Scientific Director & CEO
It is an honour to collaborate with so many exceptional partners from across Canada who readily share their diverse ideas, perspectives, insights and expertise to design innovative strategies that will strengthen health supply chain resilience. Their cumulative work over the past three years has enabled the co-design of solutions that hold tremendous promise for overcoming the many, very complex challenges Canadian Health systems experience every week while responding to unprecedented demand for care.
This year also marked the birth of the SCANHealthCAN podcast and blog to provide insightful dialogue about the challenges in health supply chains and the importance of advancing health supply chain resilience with the public. SCAN Health’s social media channels continue to expand our reach and share our learnings with Canadians.
The next phase of our work, to evaluate and pilot test these solutions in real world environments, will validate their capacity to overcome supply fragility to strengthen safety, enable our health workforce to deliver the highest quality care and to build confidence among Canadians in the resilience of our health systems to meet their needs. I extend my heartfelt thanks to our partners for their inspiration and unwavering commitment to the design of highly innovative and impactful solutions that will advance health supply chain resilience in Canada and look forward to a very exciting year ahead.
Our Vision
Products and Care When and Where They are Needed Most
Health supply chain is an essential lifeline that makes it possible for health systems to deliversafeandquality patientcare.ItiscrucialthatCanadadevelops,adopts andscales solutions to achieve supply chain resilience that enables health systems to track products and utilization rates to inform strategies that reduce risk of supply shortages and disruptions to protect the health and safety of patients and our health workforce. SCAN Health’s mission is to ensure every Canadian hospital, health system and community health setting has the capacity to deliver world-class patient care through a robust supply chain infrastructure which includes informing policy development, supporting domestic suppliers and designing digital integration to capture critical data points.
All sectors around the world felt devastating impacts from COVID-19 and there is much to learn from each other. By working together, we can mobilize our collective expertise and accelerate the collaboration needed to tackle the most pressing issues facing health systems in a post-pandemic future. This Community of Practice is creating a future that will advance digitally enabled supply chain infrastructure to ensure access to essential data to inform decisions by governments and healthcare leaders, a secure pipeline of quality products where they are needed most, protection for personnel to sustain the workforce and increased manufacturing capacity to advance economic recovery and prepare Canada to meet patient needs. The Community of Practice's co-design strategy dismantles barriers among stakeholders and jurisdictions, ensuring that all viewpoints and expertise contribute to the co-design of implementable and scalable solutions.
1
Year 2 Achievements Solutions Emerging
Emerging solutions for each of the six Workgroups
Designed solutions to support the capacity of the supply chain to protect the health and wellness of Canadians, support workforce sustainability, contribute to Canada’s economic growth and optimize health supply chain resilience.
2 Conducted innovative case simulations
Used a first of its kind case simulation exercise as an assessment tool to evaluate how Workgroup solutions can address supply chain gaps and strengthen the healthcare system during supply disruptions.
3
Launch of a podcast and blog to elevate awareness
LeveragedCommunity ofPracticeexpertise,throughinsightfuldialogue,to elevate awareness of the crucial nature of health supply chain resilience to a public audience.
Community of Practice
Partnership Building Across Sectors and Jurisdictions
The Community of Practice (CoP) creates a forum for partnership building to effectively co-design scalable solutions to advance health supply chain resilience in Canada.
Health system stakeholders strive for proactive supply chain management to effectively respond to supply disruptions to support equitable and safe care delivery.
Private sector and industry bring expertise in global supply networks to build supply chain capacity for healthcare systems that leverage domestic manufacturing.
Policy makers and government work to achieve equitable supply chain processes that effectively manage product disruptions across jurisdictions.
Academic research teams capture evidence of the impact of supply chain solutions to advance resilience nationally.
Patients and citizens bring lived experiences to inform the design of equitable health supply chain solutions to achieve value for Canadians.
◼ 34% Industry
◼ 29% Government
◼ 15% Academia
◼ 13% Health System
◼ 9% Citizens Growth in partner organizations
“It has been really valuable to learn from partners who have totally different roles and jobs than me as a physician. We have all learned a great deal from our unique perspectives which has made it possible to design solutions that consider a wide range of insights that otherwise would not have been feasible.”
DR. TREVOR JAMIESON Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Unity Health Toronto
“I firmly believe that if we deliver on the solutions that are being designed here we are going to see better health outcomes. Not only for the people that are being treated but as well for those that are enabled by these solutions in the delivery of treatment.”
RICK PRINZEN Senior Executive in
Supply Chain and Operations
investment from partners
followers on social media 2,124 $1.07M
“Through this Community of Practice we are poised to improve relationships with our domestic suppliers to meet surges in product demand and influence how the Canadian healthcare system interacts with the private sector in both good and challenging times.”
RON JOHNSON VP of Innovation and Research,
NL Health Services
“By creating new friendships, a common language and levelling what was once siloed knowledge and information, SCAN Health has already travelled miles down the path of building a national healthcare supply chain platform. A platform by which the country will be better prepared for the next pandemic or any healthcare emergency. ”
STEVE
ARMSTRONG
Citizen Representative
Fostering the next generation
SCAN Health is committed to helping foster the next generation.
The health supply chain resilience research that I have been involved in is truly representative of what I want to do with my career. Even just listening in on meetings has given me real world insight and has inspired me to work in healthcare in the future.
REIGHAN DALES, Health Policy Research Analyst
Working with a team that supports my research interests has allowed me to grow rapidly as I have the freedom to learn what I want to learn and to try new skills.
TIM STOREY, Health Policy Research Analyst
Lessons Learned
To Strengthen Health Supply Chain Resilience
Build Trust
Trust is essential and critical to coordinating proactive management of shortages to protect the health and wellness of Canadians and the health workforce and to achieve health supply chain resilience in Canada.
Transparency and Visibility
Mobilizingandsharing knowledge,expertise,capacityanddatabetweenjurisdictionswill improve transparency and visibility to better inform decisions. Clinicians and patients must beengagedthroughoutthisprocesstoinformdecisionson alternative careoptions during shortages.
Inclusive Collaboration
A forum that engages all stakeholder groups and enables knowledge sharing is crucial to eliminating barriers imposed by current jurisdictional culture. Stakeholders from across Canada must come together to leverage knowledge, expertise and data with shared accountability to better manage the thousands of supply shortages that occur daily.
“What this community is doing has the potential to change the fundamentals of health care delivery for decades and generations to come.”
JAY SINGH Former Chief Commercial Officer, PADM Medical
A Way Forward
Pathway to Resilience
Canada has learned many difficult lessons from the pandemic that had profound impact on the health of Canadians due to supply shortages. Informed by research and working with our remarkable partners in supply chain networks and teams across Canada, the Community of Practice has designed six health supply chain resilience solutions that are now ready for testing and evaluation in real world situations to support implementation at scale. These include:
• A Multi-Jurisdictional Collaboration Strategy to build important linkages between our federal, provincial, territorial jurisdictions, with a forum for dialogue and collaboration, that will overcome the lack of coordination and competitive processes used during times of health product supply shortage.
• A Proactive Surveillance System to identify supply disruption risk, empowering supply chain teams to intervene early and mitigate or prevent risk to the health and wellness of Canadians.
• A Strategic Sourcing and Procurement Model to increase resilience and overcome the risks of a single supplier of critical products for Canadians.
• A Domestic Manufacturer Database and Search Platform to enable every Canadian health system to access and engage with Canadian companies who have the capacity to manufacture health products needed to deliver care and ensure products are available within our country’s borders.
• A Clinical Communications Checklist to create channels of communication between supply chain teams and clinicians to ensure alternative products and care decisions are informed by provider expertise and the health needs of Canadians.
• An End-to-End Digital Supply Chain Map to inform and support health systems to digitally enable supply chain processes across Canadian health systems and build the transparency and data driven decision making necessary to advance health supply chain resilience into the future.
Designed with all key stakeholders in the health supply chain these practical solutions are positioned with the necessary leadership, expertise and shared accountability required for scale across Canada. Case simulation exercises were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of these solutions and examine how they can be strengthened to mitigate health care supply disruptions. The collective outcomes and impact of these diverse solutions hold the potential to ensure critical products are available to safely deliver quality health services to protect the health and wellness of every Canadian into the future.
Acknowledgements
To the Changemakers Championing This Work
SCAN Health wishes to express its deep appreciation to the incredible partners driving the Community of Practice forward for their unwavering commitment and substantial contribution to achieving health supply chain resilience in Canadian health systems. Together, we will work towards a brighter future where care, processes and products are available when and where they are needed most to ensure workforce safety, world-class health care, and equitable outcomes.
Learn more about our network of partners, whose dedication and acumen have been paramount in our accomplishments over the past year.
• Board of Directors
• Strategic Advisory Council
• Community of Practice Workgroup Leaders
• Partners
• Team
A special acknowledgement to strategic partners, Shoppers Drug Mart, GS1 Canada and NGen for their continuous support of the Community of Practice.
SCAN Health is supported, in part, by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada Summer Jobs, and is hosted atthe OdetteSchool of Business, University of Windsor.
