Framework for tracking and enhancing sustainability and diversity in healthcare procurement in light of COVID-19

2019冠状病毒病大流行凸显了我们医疗保健供应链的脆弱性，暴露了我们过度依赖某些国家或地区来确保供应链的安全和可持续性。这导致我们整个医疗系统的商品和服务严重短缺，并阻碍了我们在最需要的时间和地点提供医疗服务的能力。全球价值链（GVC）框架在过去二十年中指导了供应链设计，为我们的医疗保健生态系统和社会带来了巨大的贸易和利益。然而，在全球需求冲击和供应短缺的背景下，它显示出了准时制（JIT）商业模式的弱点，这种模式优先考虑低成本的外国制造产品，重点是减少库存以最大限度地降低运营成本，同时忽视了可持续性和环境影响。在英国，NHS现有的供应商选择解决方案使用GVC框架和对一小部分供应商变量的主观评估，以及对非实时内部供应商数据的人工分析来指导选择决策。为了更好地为即将到来的COVID-19浪潮做好准备，并帮助系统为COVID-19后的恢复做好准备，Vamstar将利用数据科学和深度学习来创建一个多元多样性评分和评估框架，将供应商多样性、供应链安全性和环境可持续性标准纳入供应商选择组合。这将确保NHS有能力在COVID-19期间使用更综合的框架管理供应风险，同时为COVID-19后的恢复创造可持续的途径。此外，通过纳入与环境可持续性相关的变量，如减排，英国政府和NHS将能够提供第一个可行的工业框架，以实现净零排放目标，同时确保供应链的安全性、可持续性、多样性和稳定性。

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragility of our healthcare supply chains and exposed our over-reliance on certain countries or regions to ensure supply chain security and sustainability. This has led to massive shortages of goods and services across our healthcare system and has hampered our ability to deliver care when and where it is most needed. The Global-Value-Chain (GVC) framework which has guided the supply chain design in the last two decades has unlocked tremendous trade and benefits to our healthcare ecosystem and society. However, under the lens of a global demand shock and supply shortages, it has shown the weaknesses of just-in-time (JIT) business model that prioritises low-cost foreign-made products, with a focus on reduced inventories to minimise operating costs, while ignoring sustainability and environmental impact.In the UK, the NHS's existing solutions for supplier selection use GVC framework and subjective assessments of a narrow range of supplier variables and manual analysis of non-real-time internal supplier data to guide selection decisions. To better prepare the NHS for the emerging COVID-19 wave and help prepare the system for post-COVID recovery, Vamstar will leverage data-science and deep learning to create a multivariate diversity-scoring-and-assessment framework to incorporate supplier diversity, supply chain security, and environmental sustainability criteria in the supplier selection mix. This will ensure that the NHS has a capacity to manage the supply risks during COVID-19 using a more integrated framework while creating a sustainable pathway for post-COVID recovery. Moreover, by incorporating environmental sustainability related variables, such as emissions reductions, the UK government and the NHS will be able to provide the first working industrial framework to meet the net-zero emissions target while ensuring supply chain security, sustainability, diversity, and stability.