Shoring up supplies in response to COVID-19

March 31, 2020

If you think it’s tough to get a hold of toilet paper and hand sanitizer for your house of four, just imagine doing it for a health care system that sees over 4,000 children and women daily. Shoring up supplies for a critical population like ours is no small feat. It takes strong leadership to think ahead, secure partnerships and ensure we are prepared with the right supplies to continue to deliver care to patients who need us.

While the global coronavirus pandemic has created numerous challenges for health care – and for many other industries across the U.S. and around the world – Texas Children’s Supply Chain Team is helping us lead the charge to ensure all of our patient care facilities maintain adequate supply during COVID-19.

“We continue to support our patient care activities across the system, and with more incoming shipments on the way, we will add to our current supply in the days and weeks ahead,” said Texas Children’s Senior Vice President for Facilities Operations Bert Gumeringer. “We are able to meet this goal through collaborative relationships that we have built with our supply chain and community partners.”

Early on in the hospital’s response to COVID-19, Texas Children’s Supply Chain Team focused its efforts on increasing the organization’s inventory of supplies that are maintained in our warehouse – these items include masks, gowns and hand sanitizer – all of which are in short supply across the country.

In addition to collaborating with our traditional supply chain partners, Texas Children’s has been working diligently to acquire products outside of the hospital’s normal channels, which has proven beneficial:

  • Hand sanitizer:  Our supply chain is looking to the distilling industry to source hand sanitizer. We are working with two different distillers to provide us product. Our first shipment arrived on March 26. Texas Children’s sourced the materials to one of the distillers who used the materials to manufacture the hand sanitizer exclusively for our hospital.
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): We are working through very creative, safe alternatives to maintain appropriate supplies of PPE. For N95 masks, we have sourced product through the commercial construction market. This is not a traditional supply channel, but one the organization has tapped into. We continue to receive N95 masks through our normal supply channels, as well.
  • Protective masks for patients – We continue to work with our partners in the Texas Medical Center to shore up supplies. Houston Methodist Hospital donated 12,000 Teddy Bear masks for  patients who need to wear them, especially for our immunocompromised patient population.
  • Other supplies and products:  Our team has adopted an out of the box approach.  When the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show shut down, we moved quickly to acquire their hand sanitizer and paper products.  We are also acquiring hand sanitizer from Minute Maid Park, toilet paper from the Westin Hotel, paper towels from a janitorial service and disinfectant from Home Depot.

While significant progress has been made to ensure Texas Children’s has adequate supplies to support daily operations, engaging in good conservation practices is equally important.

“We encourage our employees and staff to continue to wash their hands frequently with soap and water to help conserve our supply of hand sanitizer,” Gumeringer said. “It’s also important to keep calm. While we’ve been through catastrophic hurricanes and storms, we will get through COVID-19 together as well.”