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WASHINGTON — Drug shortages create challenges for providers and their patients. As a critical connection between healthcare manufacturers and providers, HDA member healthcare distributors are working closely with their supply partners, patient advocates and the government to minimize the impact of disruptions and prevent them from happening at all.
HDA recently hosted a LinkedIn Live discussion exploring how supply chain stakeholders are working together to tackle these challenges and advocate for solutions. The event featured perspectives from Laura Bray, Chief Change Maker and Founder of Angels for Change, and April Giles, Executive Director of the End Drug Shortages Alliance (EDSA). Chip Davis, HDA President and Chief Executive Officer, moderated the discussion, which also touched upon effects of recent hurricanes on the prescription supply and the newly announced Biden Cancer Moonshot pilot program to curb pediatric shortages.
As a longtime supporter of Angels for Change and a member of EDSA, HDA is proud to bring together these individuals who play such an integral role in ensuring the availability of safe and effective medicines.
Here are three takeaways from the conversation:
1. Collaboration is Critical
Throughout the discussion, Davis, Bray and Giles all emphasized the central role of cross-sector collaboration in developing sustainable solutions to drug shortages.
In describing what she has learned since founding Angels for Change, Bray shared, “From the beginning, the whole point of Angels for Change was patients need a voice, but we need to do it with [the healthcare industry] … it can’t happen without policy engaged and agency engaged, but also industry engaged, all of us working toward the same goal."
Giles echoed that point, emphasizing that EDSA’s core work boils down to answering the question, “How do we think about bringing all of the stakeholders together … to really solve for these challenges by increasing visibility, access and advocacy?”
2. Real-Time Information Sharing Enhances Crisis Response
While discussing EDSA’s work throughout the recent IV fluids shortage, Giles highlighted how crucial, real-time data sharing is to the group’s overall goal of preventing shortages.
Giles spotlighted the EDSA Rapid Response Team, which comprises "all of the stakeholders across the community who really start to aggregate data very quickly.” As she explained, “The Rapid Response Team puts out a disruption report that helps to guide the community. Then, we layer it in with webinars just to help support additional context around that report [and] to give considerations around IV fluid mitigation strategies for our care providers.”
Davis underscored the importance of information-sharing, adding “the ability in a collective work environment or space to generate that real-time data and information, to be able to interpret it in short order and then get it out there to all impacted stakeholders … that’s critical.”
3. Innovation Can Prevent Future Shortages
The Biden Cancer Moonshot recently announced a new pilot program to mitigate shortages of pediatric cancer medications. The pilot — which brings together Angels for Change and EDSA along with HDA members Cencora and Morris & Dickson and leading children’s hospitals — exemplifies a forward-thinking approach to preventing shortages.
Giles described the program as a new way to “think about promoting transparency between these partners who have really never worked in this fashion before around inventory awareness and create an effective collaboration approach to prevent disruptions ahead of time versus being responsive after a disruption occurs.”
Further, as a new collaborative model for monitoring and managing critical medicines, the pilot aims to bring to life Bray’s belief that “30 people in a room working toward the same goal could truly solve a crisis and save lives.”
Watch the full discussion here. To learn more about the healthcare distribution industry’s commitment to addressing drug shortages, visit: https://www.hda.org/drug-shortages/.
