SCO6096: Supply Chain Management in the Health Care and Medical Devices Sector

The motivation for developing this course is the widespread and growing recognition of the need to design and sustain reliable, responsive, resilient, and responsible supply chains to enable the delivery of high quality, high volume, and affordable physical and mental health care equitably in both developed and developing countries.The course advances an end-to-end, supply chain–centric view of the health care and medical devices sector – i.e., linking the development of care to the delivery of care: “from bench to bed.” The course highlights the interdependencies between organizations on the upstream (e.g., medical devices, pharma, and biotech firms) and downstream (e.g., hospitals and clinics) of the healthcare supply chain.Topics addressed include: managing supply chain risks with rapid growth in adverse events and recalls related to medical devices and drugs; and reducing the disparities in health care delivery in underserved communities around the world. Implications of scientific and technological advancements – specifically, precision medicine, surgical robots, mobile & wearable devices, telemedicine and IoT (Internet of Technology) – for designing and sustaining health care supply chains will be a theme that will run through the entire course. We will closely follow the developments related to COVID-19 pandemic throughout the duration of the course. In every class session, we will make a concerted effort to explore the topic of the session and its relevance to understanding and addressing COVID-19 related issues at the local, state, national and global levels -- e.g., understanding the roles of the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

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