The American Hospital Association released a field brief developed with AHRMM through its CLEAR emergency readiness initiative. It draws on discussions with healthcare supply chain leaders, GPOs, distributors, public-health officials, and emergency management professionals.

The brief identifies six priorities:

1. Establish common emergency thresholds and shared visibility.
2. Give supply chain a defined role in incident command.
3. Account for manufacturing concentration and geographic risk.
4. Develop shared dashboards, substitution lists and planning tools.
5. Preserve lessons and continuity after disruptions.
6. Measure stabilization and workforce effects—not merely a “return to normal.”

Its recommendations include tracking hospital inventory, distributor stock, and manufacturer capacity; mapping critical products’ complete logistics pathways; incorporating geographic risk into sourcing; running supply disruption tabletop exercises; and creating clinically approved substitution lists before shortages occur.

The brief reframes supply chain preparedness as an enterprise continuity and patient care issue. A particularly useful finding is that supply chain is frequently absent from regional emergency exercises, even when the exercise exposes product and logistics needs. It also calls for a continuously updated critical product dashboard that could eventually connect external disruption intelligence with hospital inventory systems.