Vizient to help ensure better supply reliability of PPE for member healthcare providers
Ensuring supplies and medications are where they are needed, when they are needed has never been simple, even before COVID-19. Vizient, Inc. has been actively working to help improve supply resiliency and has announced the addition of critical PPE items to its Novaplus Enhanced Supply Program.
Standard Textile is the first supplier to join the expanded program offering reusable gowns, masks, shoe covers and caps.
“We launched the Novaplus Enhanced Supply Program in January to directly address supply chain resiliency for pharmaceuticals and mitigate shortages of essential medications. Due to the supply chain disruption that has been caused by the pandemic, we are expanding the program to also include the PPE that providers need right now to fight COVID-19 as well as when they will face other highly contagious viruses and natural disasters,” said Kristina Bourke, group senior vice president, strategic sourcing partnerships & programs.
The Novaplus Enhanced Supply agreement with Standard Textile for reusable PPE includes:
- AAMI Level 1 isolations gowns
- Cloth utility fabric masks
- Bouffant caps
- Skull caps
- Non-skid shoe covers
Novaplus Enhanced Supply is part of Vizient’s larger strategy to outmaneuver uncertainty by creating a more resilient supply chain, built on transparency and trust between manufacturers and providers. This includes increasing sharing of information into sources for raw materials and product origin as well as expanding domestic capacity and requiring contracted suppliers to provide additional onshore inventory of the contracted products.
The value and effectiveness of the program was demonstrated earlier this year when demand for propofol, an essential drug for patients on ventilators, spiked due to COVID-19. The program added 676,000 additional units of propofol to the supply chain during the initial surge of the virus.
