What’s the solution for resupplying one of the items that is fundamental for delivering dialysis for our patients when the product is backordered due to supply chain issues caused by COVID? “There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, you have to get creative and think outside of the box if you are going to survive in health care supply chain during COVID,” said Eric Swaim, Director of Strategic Sourcing and Supply Chain Analytics.
According to Swaim, when reordering dialysis acid in January, his team learned our vendor had a COVID outbreak in their Dallas distribution center and would not be able to fulfill our order at that time. Not wanting to accept “no” as an answer, Swaim and his team worked with the vendor to find an alternate solution for restocking our supply of the product in time to avoid any disruptions for our patients receiving dialysis.
The vendor moved fulfillment of the order to an alternate distribution center in Los Lunas, New Mexico, sold the acid in drums instead of the one gallon jugs we normally purchase, and allowed Texas Children’s to pick up the order with our own truck.
To ensure zero issues in picking up and transporting this high priority delivery, the Supply Chain team received updates from the driver every four to five hours during transit from Houston to New Mexico and back to Texas Children’s Renal Center.
“Our clinicians are thankful for the resourcefulness and resilience of our Supply Chain partners,” said Jae Frazier, Director of Renal and Apheresis Services. “Without them, we would have had to make clinical decisions with direct impacts to our patients’ dialysis care and overall health.”
According to Frazier, countless citywide and nationwide dialysis facilities have been affected by a shortage of this critical supply component for life-saving, life-sustaining dialysis care and many centers have had to decrease services provided to dialysis patients. Swaim added that pre-COVID, only five percent of products were on some sort of backorder. Now his team are seeing 30-40 percent on backorder.
Planning ahead in a challenging supply environment
Since this experience, the Supply Chain team has been partnering more closely with the Renal clinical team and with the vendor during weekly calls to monitor supply. Along with this consistent communication, the clinicians are conserving the product, and two more trucks were sent to the same New Mexico distribution center to pick up our allocation of dialysis acid, which provided the Renal Center with over 30 days’ worth of supply.
“This regular communication has allowed us to remain nimble in our approach to managing this critical supply shortage,” said Frazier. “Our conservation efforts, although precipitated by the shortage, will become part of our ongoing commitment to providing cost-effective care.”
The teams’ extra efforts have put Texas Children’s in a good position to survive this backorder through June, and their continued partnership will ensure limited to no disruption for our patients, according to Swaim. One of his main takeaways is that vendors want to help us be successful, but if they say they can’t supply something it’s best to challenge it by asking the tough questions or proposing off the wall solutions in order to get the product you need.
