Written by Marc Roberts

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review highlighted the continuing shortages of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as well as other medical supplies.  Nine months into the Pandemic, and it is hard to believe that shortages of PPE and other critical healthcare supplies remain in short supply.

Why is this important to your business?  With the climbing COVID case numbers and the coming cold weather, there could be more extreme shortages of supplies.  The Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health have expressed deep concern that the combination of the flu season and increased indoor time will create significant issues for the United States with rising levels of illness.

If you use PPE in your daily operations, do you have enough supplies on hand to weather any near term supply shortages?  We all took toilet paper for granted, and we were shocked when we had to scramble to find a basic household commodity.

So as you move into Fall, you need to assess your PPE supply levels from two viewpoints... (1) do I have enough PPE stockpiled to get through the next 6 months with things in a status quo... or (2) if there is an increase in the number of illnesses, do I have enough to get through any worsening supply shortages?

Don’t forget that with supply shortages come increased pricing and potentially a decrease in the product availability.

We have checked with our PPE supplier, the product is currently available and the pricing has stabilized.

But they did indicate that the market is very fluid and they are expecting shortages going into the fall and winter.

Please let us know if you would like to review your PPE supply levels or replenish any that might be running low.