Whether you're in an area where things are staring to look up or have never looked grimmer, we did actually find some tools to help you deal with the current (and any future) disaster.
Never have the words of Smash Mouth rung more true. Truly my world is on fire (how 'bout yours). Okay, maybe we shouldn't give too much credit to a band that directly contributed to a superspreader event. But we make light of disaster, because what else are we supposed to do?
Oh, right. Help mitigate it.
We're doing our best at helping healthcare providers supplied with exactly what they need, and you're doing your best to keep your community healthy, too. We've got plenty of news - some disastrous, some actually hopeful - about general healthcare and the industry's supply chain in this week's Five To Save...
- Two interesting pieces of research were making the rounds this week. One suggests that the best protection against the Delta variant sounds a little oxymoronic: a previous infection combined with vaccination. The latter half of that is borne out in evidence that countries with higher percentages of their populations vaccinated are faring better than the U.S.
- Given the contradictory advice given by the CDC recently, it'd be easy to misunderstand this, but the experts are clear: if you are testing positive, you are contagious. Whether you have symptoms or not, testing positive means that you are an infection risk to the people around you.
- We're all pretty clear by this point that staff shortages caused by COVID-19 aren't the only disruption that will interrupt healthcare. One recent survey says that the biggest overall disruption will be caused by cybersecurity threats, followed by supply chain disruptions. Another study specific to the supply chain claims that its greatest threats are materials shortages (no surprise) and warehouse / manufacturing fires (maybe a surprise).
- Thinking about something that we don't normally build into our expectations for the year - fires in our supply storage areas - reminds us the importance of modeling for a variety of scenarios. Preparation requires healthcare supply chain leaders to be not only proactive, but predictive.
- "That's all fine to say," you might be thinking, "but how do I do that?" Well, to be honest, it's probably a little beyond your ability to do. Nothing personal! You're stretched thin enough as it is. So what you need is what everybody needs: help from AI to improve operational decisions across every part of the healthcare business. Some artificial intelligence actually works! We promise.
We're expanding our own AI capabilities this year to help optimize pharmacy and medical device inventories and improving the work we've already done with ASCs. Keep your eye on this space for more info soon, or if you can't wait, sign up for a free demo today.