新冠疫情下，医疗供应链中的数据教训

发布时间: 2021-06-01

       近一个月来，世界各地疫苗和其他抗疫物资匮乏的新闻层出不穷。志愿者、非政府组织和当地政府一直在试图追踪和汇总有关这些医疗用品的供应数据。这些努力值得称赞，而且无疑对遏制疫情带来了积极影响，但我们必须认识到，这些努力还没有被效益最大化。疫情瞬息万变，有关医疗用品供应情况的数据往往被分享后几分钟就面临过时。假数据也是一个依然严峻的问题，而目前志愿者们大多选择手动验证数据。

       原则上，安排这些医疗用品应该是医院和医疗机构的责任。但他们也被同样的问题所困。 医疗供应链的设计是以常规的需求和供应模式为基础的，当需求激增时，医院需要对其供应链做出调整，于是这也使得他们面临着同样的问题：如何实时了解哪里有多少可用的物资库存？这个看似简单的数据问题决实则决定了我们如何能够快速地在需要的地方、在需要的时候提供医疗用品。

       当科学家、医生和医疗专业人员加班加点地应对疫情时，我们必须确保抗疫物资是可用的和充足可靠的。自从疫情爆发以来，医院一直在努力应对防护物资、氧气、疫苗和血浆的需求激增，这也成为了医疗行业的新常态。

       与此同时，在危机情况下，地方和中央政府可能需要介入为医疗物资设置配额--为此，医院可能被要求分享有关医疗用品的可用性和消费数据。

       问题不在于这些数据不可用。医院、零售商、分销商和制造商都保存了有关其医疗用品库存的数据。问题是，即便这些组织愿意共享数字，他们也很难找到一个安全、可信的环境。

       这就是区块链作为一种技术所特有的前景，它是一个数字的、安全的数据库，可以作为医疗供应链中多个组织之间的共享记录。基于区块链的医疗供应链解决方案可以使医院、零售商、分销商和制造商之间实时共享医疗物资的库存和需求信息。这些信息可以在需要时与地方和中央政府共享。与我们依靠电子邮件、PDF、电子表格和电话来分享信息和协调医疗物资不同，基于区块链的解决方案可以确保数据是可验证的，因此有更高可信度。

       再者，在数字供应链中使用基于区块链的数据共享不仅是一种社会公益，也是一种战略举措。供应链和成本优化一样，都是为了保证供应。医院适应供应中断和需求激增的速度和敏捷性将是其成功的关键因素。

       政府和监管机构可以鼓励和推动医疗供应链中的数据共享工作，医疗保健必须是私营和公共部门的联合努力--建立数字平台，以安全的方式实时分享可验证的数据是后疫情时代医疗行业的必然需求，而区块链则是实现这一需求的可靠手段。

原文：

All of us have woken up to requests for oxygen, Remedesvir or plasma on WhatsApp for more than a month now. Volunteers, NGOs & local governments have been manually tracking and aggregating data about where these medical supplies are available. Though the efforts are commendable and have no doubt saved lives, we must recognize that they fall short of a desirable state. The challenge is that in a crisis, the situation is so dynamic that data about availability of medical supplies is most often outdated minutes after it is shared on social media. Fake data is also a problem despite attempts of volunteers to manually verify it.

In principle, arranging these medical supplies should be the responsibility of the hospitals and medical care providers. But they too are struggling with the same issue. Medical supply chains are designed to operate with regular demand and supply patterns. When demand spikes, hospitals need to adapt their supply chains to cope. They face the same issue: how to find out how much is available where - in real time? This seemingly simple data problem determines how quickly can we make medical supplies available where they are needed, when they are needed.

As scientists, epidemiologists, doctors and medical professionals work overtime to cope with the current pandemic, we must ensure that the tools needed to implement the solutions are available and robust. Since this pandemic broke, hospitals have struggled to cope with the unusually high demand in PPE kits, Oxygen, Vaccines, Remedesivir and Plasma. We must accept that this is the new normal。

Hospitals must prepare to deal with sudden surges in demand for a wide variety of their supplies. They must also recognize that in crisis scenarios, local & central governments may need to step in to arrange supplies and set quotas – to do so hospitals may be required to share data about availability & consumption data of medical supplies.

The problem is not that this data is not available: Hospitals, Retailers, Distributors and Manufacturers all maintain data about their inventories of medical supplies. The problem is that there is no way for these organizations to share data with each other in a secure, trusted environment - even if they want to do so.
This is where Blockchain as a technology holds promise. Quite simply a blockchain is a digital, secure database which can act as a shared record between multiple organizations in a medical supply chain. A blockchain based medical supply chain solution can enable real-time sharing of availability & demand information of medical supplies among Hospitals, Retailers, Distributors and Manufacturers. This information can be shared with local & central governments as and when needed. Unlike today’s scenario where we must rely on emails, pdfs, spreadsheets, phone calls and WhatsApp to share information & coordinate medical supplies, a blockchain based solution ensures that data is verifiable and therefore trusted.

Controlling access to data may seem counter productive but it is important to ensure that the private sector has control of their data. The use of Blockchain based data sharing in digital supply chains is not just a social good, it is a strategic initiative. In a time of frequent disruptions, supply chains will be as much about supply assurance as they would be about cost optimization. The speed and agility with which hospitals will be able to adapt to supply disruptions and demand spikes will be a critical factor in their success to provide medical care.

Government and regulators can encourage and nudge these data sharing efforts in medical supply chain. We have a precedent in telecom: In 2018, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) created the TCCCPR regulation that outlined a blockchain network to store the telco subscriber consents for data sharing. The writing is on the wall: Medical care has to be a joint endeavor of the private and public sector – for this to succeed at scale, availability of a digital platform to share verifiable data in real time in a secure way is a fundamental need and Blockchain is a technology that can enable this.

本文转载自：CIO cio.economictimes.com

原文作者：Praphul Chanda

原文地址：https://cio.economictimes.com/news/big-data/learning-from-covid-the-data-lesson-for-medical-supply-chains/82929825

作者: Praphul Chanda