The Evolving Vaccine Supply Chain: 5 Trends Shaping Healthcare Cold-Chain Logistics in 2021

The impact of COVID-19 on our communities and economy is ongoing and profound, with waves of infections affecting every corner of the world. Healthcare-related industries are at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19. With the rollout of several COVID-19 vaccines, cold-chain logistics have become one of the more critical strategic concerns in that fight.

As the healthcare cold-chain industry moves into the new year, we wanted to highlight some of the major trends we see playing out in 2021 and how they evolve from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Continued Focus on Vaccine Transportation and Storage Throughout 2021

As 2021 begins, we are still not out of the woods with COVID-19. As vaccines are currently being deployed (and more completing Phase 3 clinical trials), the healthcare supply chain is transforming itself to meet the demands of a national, even global, vaccine rollout.

As 2021 continues, we will see that transformation as the biggest trend shaping the industry. Even as we roll out the vaccine, we are already seeing a cold-chain infrastructure straining under the demand. That is not a criticism of any party. Instead, it is a testament to the unprecedented task we face of moving millions on millions of vaccine doses across our country’s healthcare system.

However, other concerns will only become more prevalent with the growing COVID-19 distribution plan. Problems that are common in normal vaccine distribution include:

1. Temperature excursions
2. Counterfeiting of vaccines in online stores
3. Priority and shipment
4. The fragility of the cold chain

These are issues that will only become more pronounced. Pressures to lower costs at the expense of a functioning cold-chain infrastructure should not impact vaccine distribution. We foresee providers and distributors forging new alliances to address some of the gaps we currently see. It is up to integrated delivery networks (IDN), technology producers, and vaccine distributors to prioritize the COVID-19 vaccine cold chain not as a temporary state of business, but as the present and future of the healthcare industry as we know it.

This transformation will naturally include and kickstart some of the other trends discussed here.

Providers and Distributors Will Work Together to Manage Risk and Complexity

Risk assessment is already a large part of cold-chain management. It isn’t easy, and it isn’t cheap. Still, it is the only way distributors and technology providers can build infrastructure that can meet the future challenges without unnecessary loss of product to temperature excursions, theft, or waste.

What the current rollout of COVID-19 vaccines teaches us about risk management is that maintaining the cold chain will fall on suppliers, distributors, and endpoint healthcare organizations. Chain of custody, long-term data logging, and optimized transport will call for a clear and transparent end-to-end approach to management, with all the risk management it entails.

What does this mean for healthcare logistics? Data-gathering efforts and intelligence will have to play a significant role for all parties involved. Ideally, there will be transparent data-sharing cloud platforms that can connect all parties to determine the legitimacy, safety, and effectiveness of vaccines throughout their journey. This data can provide real insights to minimize risk in adopting new transportation methods, cold-chain technologies, and smart devices for vaccine monitoring and tracking. Not only will this data help with vaccine distribution, but it will help track vaccine effectiveness.

More Providers Will Rely on Intelligent Inventory to Support Equal Access

Efficiency and safety are only the tip of this particular iceberg. We could very well live in a world where broad, country-wide vaccinations could become the rule rather than the exception. How do we prepare for it? Risk assessment typically does not, as it stands, account for equal access to vaccines for the betterment of community health and protection.

New technologies will complement the cold chain by broadcasting real-time data for tasks like risk management, supply management, and inventory forecasting. Even now, IoT technology, machine learning, AI, and geographic information systems (GIS) are becoming the foundation for intelligent cold chains that can support digital twin technology to minimize loss and costs without sacrificing access.

That’s important for the healthcare industry. As vaccine distribution demands continue at the current level, humans will need these technologies to plan equitable and efficient cold supply chains. Plugging vaccine digital data loggers (DDL) into these intelligent systems will be a critical step in evolving the healthcare cold chain.

The Follow-Through for the COVID-19 Vaccine will Re-Emphasize Resiliency …

Discussions around resilient cold chains are already underway in most relevant industries, including food transportation and healthcare. Much of what matters to resiliency in cold-chain logistics relies on the intelligent technologies we’ve discussed. Disruption of the cold chain can spell disaster in terms of loss of product or the capacity for those products to reach remote areas of the country. When it comes to the COVID-19 supply chain, this is waste we cannot allow.

Risk and intelligence are key parts of creating resiliency in any operation. Additionally, those factors only work when there is transparent, robust, and accessible data at the center of it.

Now, cold chains are turning to the cloud to anchor their resiliency efforts. We see 2021 as a year where logistics make a huge leap into cloud-native and unified applications, with an equally significant move away from on-premise solutions to create robust cold-chain data infrastructures.

… While Focusing on Flexibility

Cloud platforms will readily extend the flexibility of cold-chain technology to help intelligent logistics systems better respond to the needs of distributors, healthcare providers, and patients. Portable and reliable data loggers and storage monitoring solutions will prove equally important to maintaining flexibility in on-the-ground inoculation scenarios.

Wireless loggers are the devices attached to actual storage appliances, and as such, they are the edge of any vaccination and distribution chain. They are also the edge of that chain’s data-gathering capabilities, so it’s vital to have flexible data-logging tools to handle harsh vaccination conditions, including transport and endpoint use cases.

Also, as we see the reality of curbside clinics and mass vaccinations unfold, these portable loggers, connected to a decentralized network of devices (and potentially the cloud), can ensure vaccine effectiveness and patient safety while supporting the intelligent mission of the modern cold chain.

The Evolving Cold Chain Will Be Intelligent, Flexible, and Equitable

It’s interesting to discuss some of the possibilities of how the healthcare cold chain and associated technology will look in the future. It’s important to remember that the end goal of optimizing the cold chain is to get life-saving vaccines to as many people as possible. If the current pandemic has taught us anything, it is what we can accomplish when we work together for the greater good. That’s why it is crucial that as we modernize our cold-chain technology, we also humanize it by using intelligent systems to ensure that everyone has access to effective, properly stored and distributed vaccines, no matter where they are.