When most people think of health care, they picture the human element. Doctors, nurses and other health-care professionals diagnosing ailments and offering treatment, support staff rushing to provide assistance or deliver supplies, and cleaning staff moving through a facility wiping high-touch surfaces, among many others.
For Audrey Mulla, Director, Provincial Value Analysis, Isadora Ferreira, Manager, Client Services, and countless other members of the Provincial Supply Chain team, however, health care is as much about the equipment and supplies as it is about the people who use them.
“Our goal as a team is to ensure that the shelves are always stocked, that staff have access to the supplies and resources they need to provide care,” said Mulla. “To accomplish this requires an extensive team working largely behind the scenes to select the appropriate products, place orders and manage specific items required by each individual health-care facility and specialty area across the system. Our job, is to ensure that when staff reach for an item, that it is available, and approved for use.”
The scale is massive, notes Mulla. With thousands of items across hundreds of suppliers, the risk of disruption or product shortage, is ever-present. Before COVID the health system experienced, on average, four or five significant supply disruptions each year. But the pandemic ushered in a new kind of challenge, with impacts on transportation, the availability of raw materials, and an increase in demand for health-care supplies to a level not previously experienced.
“At any given time, we are now managing hundreds of disruptions or supply shortages,” said Mulla. “This requires our supply management teams to be extremely vigilant in monitoring stock, developing back-up plans and contingencies, and evaluating products to ensure they meet all standards for health-care use.”
For Mulla, who has worked in health care for more than 30 years, the pandemic was the biggest challenge of her career. Working closely with a dedicated team, Mulla advocated for Manitoba’s health-care supply needs at every turn, seeking out new suppliers and encouraging local manufacturers to innovate in an effort to secure products that were critical to the continued delivery of care – and to keeping health-care workers safe.
“We worked daily with clinicians, workforce health and safety experts, and our suppliers and manufacturers, to ensure that we are able to meet the needs of health-care workers, and their patients, no matter what the global market threw at us,” added Mulla, referencing local distilleries that began manufacturing alcohol-based hand sanitizer and personal protective equipment (PPE).
More than 400 new products were reviewed, validated and tracked to ensure all required specifications and standards for health-care use were consistently met. This included properly-fitted PPE which, while previously required in only limited settings and situations, was now recommended for use by a large number of health-care workers across the province.
That’s where Isadora Ferreira’s team of fit-testers came in, working seven days a week, 12 hours per day to ensure that more than 10,000 health care staff were appropriately outfitted with the equipment needed to keep them – and their patients, clients and residents – safe. Using her background in project management, Ferreira oversaw a provincial fit-testing initiative that spanned 162 acute and long-term care facilities and community programs in every region of the province.
An N95 respirator is an item of PPE worn by health-care workers who are likely to be exposed to patients with an airborne communicable disease such as tuberculosis, measles, chicken pox, acute respiratory syndrome, and (when aerosolized) COVID-19. The fit-testing process involves identifying the correct size, model and type of mask for each health-care worker and ensuring they know how to use it effectively. Fit-testing is required every two years in order to remain up-to-date.
In some cases, Ferreira notes, the team was fit-testing staff who had passed their two-year expiry date or whose brand, model or size had been affected by a supply chain disruption and was no longer available. But for many, they had never needed to access an N95 and had therefore not been fit-tested before.
“We have a responsibility to ensure that staff are kept safe when they are at work, and for many health-care workers, an N95 was not a regular part of their job prior to COVID but became a necessary piece of equipment during the pandemic,” said Ferreira. “Over 10 weeks, we made a hard push to get to as many staff as possible within our area of focus, while our colleagues in other health regions did the same for their staff.”
As we approach the two-year anniversary of the provincial fit-testing push, Ferreira reminds health-care workers to keep their fit-testing up-to-date.
“I continue to feel a sense of responsibility to ensure that fit-testing remains up-to-date across our system,” said Ferreira. “Over the next few months, health-care workers will be contacted to schedule an appointment for fit-testing before they reach their expiry date.”
Shared Health is proud to recognize the contributions of all members of the Provincial Supply Chain Shared Service during National Health Care Supply Chain Week October 2-8.
A Warehouse, and So Much More - Supply Chain Management, Working Hard Behind the Scenes - Shared Health
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