Medical disposables: building resilience against supply chain disruptions

Hospitals rely heavily on global supply chains to procure medications, protective equipment, and medical disposables. International crises reveal just how fragile these systems are. A diversified logistics network, in turn, makes a hospital more resilient for the future.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown what strong regional dependence can lead to: masks, gloves, and protective clothing were nearly impossible to obtain because production was heavily concentrated in just a few regions. For respiratory masks, the share of EU imports from third countries rose to 70.3 percent in 2020, with China being the dominant supplier. At the same time, the EU had little leeway to ramp up its own production in the short term. The result: hospitals had to reuse single-use items multiple times, protection levels were lowered, and procurement prices skyrocketed.

In recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic was a unique period. At the same time, it demonstrates how an existing structural problem – the concentration of production at a single or a few locations – can be exacerbated by an international crisis to the point of becoming existential.

According to the 2025 Shortages Survey by the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP), 89 percent of surveyed hospital pharmacists state that drug shortages are impacting patient care. 79 percent report effects on pharmacy operations. Significant shortages are also evident in medical devices: 53 percent report impacts on patient care, and 45 percent on pharmacy operations, primarily due to supply chain issues and the unavailability of components. These figures no longer describe exceptional situations, but rather everyday clinical work.

According to the survey, the most common consequences of drug shortages for patients are delayed or canceled treatments, as well as the use of less effective alternatives. Shortages of medical devices, in turn, lead to delays, prolonged hospital stays, and canceled procedures.

The causes are complex: global shortages of active ingredients, production problems at manufacturers, and a procurement system primarily optimized for price are weakening the resilience of supply chains. Added to this is the concentration of production among a few suppliers and regions, which leaves little room for maneuver in the event of external shocks.

The pandemic has called the just-in-time procurement paradigm into question. Those without safety stocks are immediately exposed in the event of a crisis. For hospital management, this means: Strategic inventory management for critical disposables is not a luxury, but a means of ensuring patient safety.

At the same time, inventory management alone is not enough. A Spanish study conducted in the context of the pandemic recommends a broader supplier base, active monitoring of market developments, and procurement strategies that consider not only price but also supply security and the origin of products. Hospitals that base their purchasing decisions solely on the lowest bid risk being left without alternatives in the event of shortages.

The European Commission is responding to these structural weaknesses: The EU stockpiling strategy, published in July 2025, aims to integrate all existing sectoral stockpiling measures, strengthen access to critical resources across the EU, and combine centralized EU reserves with national contributions from member states. The rescEU initiative is also intended to cover the area of medical equipment.

This framework is complemented by the proposed Critical Medicines Act, which is intended to introduce, among other things, transparency requirements for supply chains, mandatory stockpiling, and new procurement criteria that go beyond price. The goal is to achieve greater independence from other countries for products critical to supply.

For both hospital and procurement managers, this means that regulatory expectations regarding crisis preparedness and inventory management will rise in the coming years. Those who act now will be better positioned.

This policy framework provides guidance, but it is no substitute for institutional preparedness. A hospital should systematically analyze its own supply chains for vulnerabilities:

• Which disposables come from a single supplier?
• Where are safety stock levels insufficient?
• Which products have no readily available alternatives?

Among other things, the EAHP recommends that procurement decisions not be based solely on price, but also consider supply security, supplier structure, and production locations as criteria. In addition, a hospital should digitize its inventory processes to gain transparency into current stock levels and be able to respond to shortages at an early stage.

Dependence on global supply chains cannot be eliminated. However, it can be significantly reduced through smart planning, broader supplier structures, and sufficient buffers. This is not a crisis response, but a management task aimed at increasing the resilience of the hospital itself.