Vizient Inc.’s Initiatives to Mitigate Against Potential Supply Disruptions

Vizient Inc. (Vizient) and RISCS, Inc. recently announced a joint pilot program aimed at enhancing assurance of pharmaceutical supply. Once implemented, the program would use a rating system to enable the evaluation of critical aspects of a resilient supply chain and provide increased transparency.

During the pilot, pharmacy suppliers will be asked to provide key information on their supply chains through the request-for-proposal process. The information provided will enable visibility into supply chain aspects such as redundancy in raw material supply, available production capacity and production flexibility, inventory practices, location differentiation and geopolitical risks.

Vizient is the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the U.S. Vizient’s diverse membership and customer base includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and non-acute health care providers.

Vizient also expanded Novaplus® Enhanced Supply to include three new medical/surgical categories and an antidotes category for pharmaceutical supplies. The new med/surg categories are durable medical equipment, sterile inhalation water and non-invasive ventilation. The antidotes category has 60 unique drugs, with 14 products already added to the program.

Through Novaplus Enhanced Supply (NES), Vizient provides supply assurance for participating Vizient members through increased inventory commitment from suppliers. The program expansion comes at a time of continued supply disruptions from the fallout of the pandemic and unpredictable geopolitical activity, and it focuses on a critical supply list driven by Vizient member hospitals.

With the new additions, the total number of med/ surg categories in the program is now 10, including durable medical equipment for the supply of crutches, sterile inhalation water used in respiratory procedures and non-invasive ventilation, which ventilates patients without using intubation.

In addition, Vizient has added the category of antidotes to its essential medications list, to include an additional 67 line items representing 60 unique drugs.

Launched in 2019 to help secure the supply of essential medications and mitigate their potential shortages, Novaplus Enhanced Supply has since expanded to include personal protective equipment and other critical medical supplies. Novaplus Enhanced Supply supports a more resilient supply chain through transparency, accountability and commitment to supply.

Takeaway: Vizient is proactively preparing and mitigating against potential supply disruptions

AMI’s 2022 Group Purchasing Organization Overview (GPO) identifies the strategies and activities that GPOs and health systems are implementing as they emerge from the pandemic. The report also identifies new entries in the market, as the market-leading PBMs launch their own GPOs.