Harvard Business Review September 17, 2020
It may be hard to believe after all these months, but the shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical health care supplies for dealing with the pandemic in the United States still haven’t been solved. Instead, they continue and some have gotten worse. Hospitals, nursing homes, and medical practices routinely have to waste time and heighten their disease exposure by decontaminating disposable masks and gloves for reuse. Many organizations must still forage for critically needed equipment through back channels and black markets. And while the supply of ventilators is no longer an issue, shortages of ICU medications and test-kit reagents remain.
The reason is that a slew of glaring supply-chain deficiencies have yet to be fixed. Our team,...