Obama’s Health Care Plan and the Medical Supply Chain

SCVBestPractices — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:08:39 +0000

President Obama’s proposed health care plan will present some new supply chain challenges to the medical industry if it goes into effect. One of the main goals of the President’s plan is to “assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans.” This would have a significant effect on the supply chains of medical companies. With more people receiving health care, the demand for medical devices and pharmaceuticals will go up. Health care companies must be able to handle this growth by expanding their supply chains as necessary, and ensure that operations are running as efficiently as possible, while keeping costs down. Logistics Management raises this point in their analysis of UPS’s recent survey of health care professionals. Eighty-one percent of respondents said that they were highly concerned about managing costs and, according to the analysis, this is due to the pending health care legislation.

I won’t get in to the political debate on the pros and cons of this plan, but I will say that now would be a good time for health care companies to start implementing supply chain best practices and techniques to ensure they are ready when change starts happening.

Free download: AberdeenGroup – Global Supply Chain Benchmark Report. This report from Aberdeen discusses some key global supply chain enhancements that are critical for success.

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Obama’s Health Care Plan and the Medical Supply Chain