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- Region V for Kids
Region V for Kids
Strengthening Pediatric Supply Chains Across the Great Lakes
Region V for Kids is a Pediatric Disaster Center of Excellence that brings together nine children’s hospitals across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Since 2020, Healthcare Ready has worked with the consortium to understand how the region’s pediatric hospitals manage their supply chains, and to build practical tools that help them stay ready for the next emergency.
Explore the cornerstone resources of this partnership, the Supply Chain Assessment Executive Summary and the Region V for Kids Critical Supply List, built for hospital supply chain leaders, emergency managers, pharmacists and clinicians.
Children aren’t small adults, and neither are their supply needs.
A neonatal airway, a weight-based antibiotic dose, a gown that fits a six-year-old: pediatric care runs on specialized, size-specific products that often come from a short list of suppliers. When a hurricane closes a plant, a port backs up, or a respiratory surge fills every bed, those are the items that disappear first, and the hospitals that care for children feel it fast.
COVID-19 made that fragility impossible to ignore. Region V for Kids and Healthcare Ready set out to capture what pediatric hospitals learned the hard way and turn it into tools any children’s hospital can use to prepare for the next disruption.
About Region V for Kids
Region V for Kids is a Pediatric Disaster Center of Excellence funded by the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR). Led by University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s in Cleveland, the consortium unites children’s hospitals, regional healthcare coalitions, EMS, public health and emergency management, alongside national partners including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Emergency Nurses Association and the American College of Emergency Physicians.
MissionTo build on existing foundations in pediatric clinical care and emergency response by enhancing coordination mechanisms and incorporating relevant capabilities at the local, state and regional levels.
The goal: harness and develop best practices in pediatric disaster preparedness and response, and share them with children’s and non-children’s hospitals across the region, covering the full cycle of mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
Learn more at RegionVforKids.orgConsortium hospitals
- OHUniversity Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s, Cleveland LEAD
- OHCincinnati Children’s Hospital, Cincinnati
- OHNationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus
- MIC.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Ann Arbor
- MICorewell Health Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, Grand Rapids
- ILLurie Children’s Hospital, Chicago
- INRiley Children’s Hospital, Indianapolis
- MNChildren’s Minnesota, Minneapolis
- WIChildren’s Wisconsin, Milwaukee
From pandemic lessons to a practical playbook
Healthcare Ready partnered with Region V for Kids to study how the region’s pediatric hospitals source, stock and share critical supplies, and what changed after COVID-19 pushed every one of those systems to its limit. We combined a review of research, industry and government sources with in-depth interviews with hospital supply chain leaders, group purchasing organizations and distributors with a regional footprint.
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2020Baseline assessment
A first look at regional supply chain strengths, weaknesses and threats, conducted with the consortium under its former name, EGLPCDR.
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2022Post-COVID refresh
A follow-up assessment measuring how hospitals’ plans held up during the pandemic, with nine recommendations for the next event.
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2022Critical Supply List
A reference list of 1,200+ items covering medical supplies, NICU and pediatric needs, pharmacy and provider PPE for common hazards.
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TodayA foundation to build on
With shortages rising again, these tools give hospitals a starting point to review, update and adapt to their own facility and hazards.
Six lessons that still hold
Recurring practices from pediatric hospitals across the region that kept care going through the worst of the pandemic.
Just-in-case beats just-in-time
Hospitals are moving away from lean ordering toward more days-on-hand inventory for the supplies that matter most.
Safety stock, positioned where it’s needed
Warehousing and moving product between neighboring facilities helped get supplies to the patients who needed them.
Buffers at the bedside
Raising minimum par levels at automated replenishment locations kept units supplied through prolonged uncertainty.
Critical supply lists need an owner
Approaches vary widely, but every hospital needs a clear process for tracking priority supplies before a crisis begins.
Nurses are supply chain’s secret weapon
Clinical teams embedded in supply chain decisions speed up the search for safe, clinically accepted substitutes.
Relationships resolve shortages
Strong ties with GPOs, distributors, manufacturers and neighboring hospitals helped vet new suppliers and share scarce resources.
Tools for pediatric supply chain readiness
Built for hospital supply chain leaders, emergency managers, pharmacists and clinicians. Free to download and adapt.
Where children’s hospitals can start
Drawn from the assessment’s recommendations, these steps help any pediatric hospital strengthen resilience, inside or outside Region V.
- Share demand data with suppliers, GPOs and distributors for better forecasting.
- Bring nurses into sourcing and substitution decisions.
- Secure secondary vendors for supplies critical in an emergency.
- Build or join a safety stock through coalitions and supply chain partners.
- Rotate stock regionally so supplies reach patients before they expire.
- Add safety stock to your HVA and share it with external partners.
- Participate in pediatric networks like Region V for Kids and your health care coalition.
- Diversify your command center across departments and specialties.
Explore more from Region V for Kids
Clinical guidelines, training tools and family resources for pediatric disaster preparedness, plus the consortium’s full supply chain library.
Questions, or interested in collaborating? Email alerts@healthcareready.org.
Region V for Kids Pediatric Disaster Center of Excellence is funded by a grant from the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (4 U3REP190615-01-15). For more information, visit ASPR.gov.
