April 2007

Gloves fit into pandemic preparedness plans

Gloves, along with face masks, respirators, gowns and other personal protective equipment are a healthcare worker’s first line of defense against infectious disease, particularly in a pandemic situation. The question is – will hospitals be able get their hands on the gloves they desperately need during a crisis such as an influenza pandemic?  

In March 2007, Healthcare Purchasing News asked glove manufacturers about their pandemic preparedness plans and here’s how they responded: 

“Most of the stockpiling demand to date has been focused on face masks, especially respirators,” said David Parks, general manager, global business management, Kimberly-Clark Health Care. “However, we have fully ramped up capacity in our exam glove plants to be sure we have sufficient inventory to meet the stockpiling needs of medical facilities, governments, and health ministries around the world. At the present time, Kimberly-Clark is able to fulfill the demand for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), including gloves, from current customers.”   

Ansell Healthcare put a pandemic and bioterrorism preparedness program place in March 2006, posting guidelines, advice and self-study guides for customers on the Ansell website, www.Ansellhealthcare.com.  

“We also reached out to our customers and we asked them what they were doing in order to prepare and what their needs were, if they were thinking about this,” said Diego Rodriguez, marketing director, Ansell Healthcare. “We told them we would be willing to work with them. We initiated that conversation and with certain customers we’ve been working on specific programs. In general, Ansell is uniquely positioned to be able to respond to increased demand much quicker, in the sense that we manufacture a lot of our own gloves, and we have manufacturing facilities worldwide” he added.  

Tronex Healthcare Industries, which offers a comprehensive line of quality disposable head-to-toe body protection products, issued the following statement: “Pandemic preparedness plans have been a point of serious discussion for quite some time, and in our experience, most companies regardless of their industry, are still only in the planning stages. Once these companies identify the Federal Government’s guidelines for a plan, the greatest challenge for them seems to be finding and allocating the time and resources to develop necessities such as emergency communication plans and essential body protection equipment inventories. Our involvement with customers on the front line of their unique cross-contamination control and infection protection requirements has given us the ability to understand the many dynamics of a preparedness program.  

“We also believe that as the world’s population continues to increase, we will continue to see new trends in germ mutation and significant related issues that affect the community, and we all have a responsibility to respect and address the likelihood of these occurrences. As such, we’ve taken great lengths to even further leverage our sophisticated internal inventory management systems to help us account for, track, and estimate our customer’s potential immediate product needs and general supply chain stockpiling of essential body protection equipment. Unfortunate unforeseen events like pandemics and emergencies are always top of mind for Tronex.”

Daphne Mon, AVP business development for Tronex, said, “Open communication, in a structured orderly fashion, with our customers on this issue has been the most critical resource in being proactively involved with them. With their internal inventory forecasts we are even better positioned to successfully respond to their complete body protection demands.”  

Tronex Healthcare Industries has also developed a company preparedness/ contingency program in order to ensure the implementation of critical business activities in the event of a pandemic. Among these efforts are: ongoing internal and external communications, customer order processing, and continued product manufacturing and distribution. 

Medline Industries is also assisting customers with preparedness plans. “Quite a few of our customers have already stocked up on exam gloves in preparation of a possible pandemic, and many others are considering these precautions,” said Tripp Amdur, president, Medline Gloves Division. “Medline sells more exam gloves in the U.S. than any other company and we also have the largest inventory, about 1.4 billion gloves. We’ve kept our inventories higher than normal to better accommodate unexpected requests. We encourage our customers to prepare in advance, if possible. For example, prepare a two or three month supply of essential isolation materials (gloves, masks, gowns, etc.) in an off-site warehouse. No one knows if or when these supplies will become necessary, so protocols are needed to rotate this inventory periodically.” 

Cardinal Health issued the following statement on pandemic preparedness: “Cardinal Health is serious about our responsibility to maintain service to the healthcare community, no matter what the crisis. Healthcare providers depend on our products to show up on their docks so they can take care of patients. We also have a responsibility to our employees, suppliers and our shareholders. Much has been done to date to prepare for a potential pandemic and its impact on all stakeholders. To that end, preparing for an influenza pandemic has been incorporated into our business continuity plans. 

Our planning activity has revolved around identifying functions that are critical to serving our customers and the resources essential to performing these critical functions. Cardinal Health has developed a specific plan to protect “mission critical” employees to lessen the impact on our business and to maintain service to our customers. This includes purchasing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) under the CDC guidelines for avian flu protection and eradication, employee education on the use of PPE, good hygiene and infection avoidance, staffing plans to manage high absenteeism, driver and carrier backup plans, and utilization of various resources across the country to facilitate customer ordering. In addition, if an outbreak occurs, Cardinal Health will implement certain workplace considerations such as telecommuting and flexible hours.

Although no one is able to predict what might happen in a pandemic, Cardinal Health is prepared to respond appropriately to ensure the resiliency of our business against disruption to help maintain the continuity of the supply chain, so our customers can provide appropriate and uninterrupted patient care.”

Carolyn Twomey, RN, vice president of clinical affairs for Mölnlycke Health Care US, who also chairs Molnlycke’s pandemic task force, said, “Right now clinicians are in this stage of, ‘I might want to ramp up what I need, but I don’t know how much I need and I don’t want to spend too much money and have my warehouse full’; and the manufacturers are saying, ‘we might need to make more but what if we don’t sell more?’”

“There are some companies that are looking at risk sharing opportunities when it comes to stocking up. This is a dilemma everybody faces right now – we talk about it in our meetings on a regular basis. There is a risk for a manufacturer who decides to increase their production by 30 percent and then have a warehouse full of expiring products.”

“Ask your manufacturer what their plans are,” Twomey suggests. “We sit down with our customers on a regular basis about it. It’s got to be a partnership when this happens. I’m of the mindset that it’s not ‘if’ but ‘when’. And if it’s not avian flu it’s going to be something else.”