{"id":323,"date":"2020-10-26T10:17:58","date_gmt":"2020-10-26T08:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/?p=323"},"modified":"2023-12-08T18:42:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T16:42:04","slug":"dont-let-the-latest-emergency-make-you-forget-about-the-other-urgent-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/2020\/10\/26\/dont-let-the-latest-emergency-make-you-forget-about-the-other-urgent-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t let the latest emergency make you forget about the other urgent issues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

26.10.2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By F\u00e9licia Sa\u00efah, PhD Candidate at the HUMLOG Institute<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Supply chain,” “health\nemergency,” and “critical inventories” are some of the terms\nthat have been popularized through the current pandemic. Like no other event,\nthis pandemic spread awareness about the supply chain issues linked to\nresponding to a healthcare emergency. The lack of Personal Protective Equipment\nPPE, oxygen concentrators, or beds to welcome patients in local healthcare\nfacilities had the entire planet worried for months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this blog post is not about Covid-19, it is\nabout all other health emergencies that took place at the same time but were\nnot in the media spotlight. Not only were on-going medical humanitarian\nactivities not stopped during the pandemic, but those activities had to be\nadjusted to new regulations to protect staff and patients, as well as include\nmeasures to treat Covid-19 patients in a highly complex market for medical\nitems purchase. And while no one could have foreseen the extent of this crisis,\nwe can learn from it the key factors that made existing humanitarian missions\nmore responsive for future disruptions: epidemics, armed conflict, or others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, the Humlog institute offered the\ninternational medical NGO M\u00e9decins sans Fronti\u00e8res \/ Doctors without Borders to\nanalyze the key factors that allowed the on-going humanitarian mission to\nadjust to the pandemic. Indeed, all of MSF missions had to manage the continuity\nof care, protecting staff and patients, and in extreme cases open specific\nCovid-19 centers to respond to the local population needs. Thus, since August,\nthe research team has collaborated with MSF to analyze how the 151 missions in\n77 countries managed they supply chain since January. By analyzing over 500\ndocuments, hundreds of thousands of order lines, and over 50 interviews, we aim\nto provide MSF with strategic and operational recommendations to strengthen their\nsupply chain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As all missions were conducting different\nprograms and had very different environmental constraints, they didn’t have the\nsame tools at their disposal to face the supply chain disruptions due to the\npandemic. Moreover, the needs assessment was challenging as the medical\nprotocol was changing and forecasts about the pandemic’s evolution were\nunreliable. While countries with frequent cases of Ebola or high surgical\nactivities had a large quantity of protective equipment in their emergency\npreparation inventory, those quantities were insufficient in light of the\nneeds. On the other hand, missions in countries with limited import\nopportunities had more significant stocks (up to a year sometimes) and\/or teams\ndedicated to the local purchase and the local quality testing for medical\nitems. That allowed them to source PPE locally when the international market was\nout of stock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

International transport activities also\nincreased in complexity, and missions had to adjust to longer lead-times and\nincreased complexity to find available cargo planes. But inter-NGO\ncollaboration to fill full charters or WFP mandated cargo planes were\nextra-ordinary resources that ensured the continuity of activities. Some\ncountries even ended up fully closed, with no possibilities of import and no\nresources on the local market for purchase. The teams ensured continuity of\ncare by sourcing donations from other NGOs and establishing extra-ordinary\nrationing measures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are only some examples of the challenges\nand resources that the organization deployed to ensure continuity of care. In\nthe coming months, and through the upcoming Delphi iterations, the research\nteam aims to reach a consensus with the organization on the lessons learned,\nbest practices, and recommendations to implement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though the media spotlight may not be shining on them right now, NGOs of all sizes are currently going above and beyond to ensure the continuity of humanitarian assistance, and so should research and discussions on long-term humanitarian operations and supply chains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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26.10.2020 By F\u00e9licia Sa\u00efah, PhD Candidate at the HUMLOG Institute “Supply chain,” “health emergency,” and “critical inventories” are some of the terms that have been popularized through the current pandemic. […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":328,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323\/revisions\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/humlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}