Development of an Implementation Framework to Advance Provincial and National Health System Supply Chain Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the current gap in healthcare supply chain in Canada, as healthcare workers struggle to access the products and equipment needed to deliver safe, timely, and quality care to Canadians. The purpose of this research is to examine supply chain processes and infrastructure to create the evidence for strengthening supply chain infrastructure that ensures that products are available to public health teams and health care professionals to protect the health of every Canadian citizen. The research will conduct mixed-method case studies of seven provinces to document how supply chain processes influence COVID-19 health outcomes, and how data, digital tools and analytics can improve health services and public health efforts to manage COVID-19. Cases will examine policy frameworks that ensure health teams have safe and effective products from quality companies, as well as strategies to support effective federal-provincial-territorial supply chain coordination. This research will inform strategies to ensure Canadians have access to public health prevention initiatives and can access care for those who become infected by COVID-19. The proposed research will advance supply chain resilience across Canada to ensure health system capacity, accelerating Canada's pandemic response, and ensuring public health and health care teams have the products and equipment needed to prevent, detect, treat, and manage COVID-19. Improved supply chain infrastructure will create transparency of the effectiveness of COVID-19 interventions, enabling Canada to better coordinate with national and global supply chain networks and strengthen Canada's capacity to proactively manage COVID-19. Evidence of policy frameworks and supply chain infrastructure informs clinical and health system management of this pandemic and will advance planning and coordination across provincial, federal, and global health systems to support effective and timely management of COVID-19.