A new approach to ensure Southern California's PPE is locally produced and stored

During the last several months, L.A. Care Health Plan, Inland Empire Health Plan, and the Hospital Association of Southern California have been working on developing a strategy so that Southern California never faces another personal protective equipment (PPE) Shortage again.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it prompted a severe shortage of PPE. There weren't enough gloves, medical masks, gowns, and N95 respirators. As a result of the short supply many health workers suffered and ended in more deaths than necessary. 

According to the World Health Organization, Health workers heavily relied on PPE to protect themselves and their patients from being infected and infecting others. “Without secure supply chains, the risk to healthcare workers around the world is real. Industry and governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding. We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan currently serves more than 2.9 million Angelenos. John Baackes, CEO of L.A. Care was responsible for putting together a coalition, with a goal of establishing a local PPE stockpile. He also wants to have PPE and its raw materials manufactured locally to ensure a steady supply while helping boost the local economy.

Baackes told CALÓ News that when the pandemic happened most businesses, hospitals, clinics and nursing homes had a system of  purchasing where they had long term contracts for material that they used on a routine basis that would be shipped to them as it was needed. “There was no warehousing of certain items because you had a standing order of about 10,000 widgets a month,” he said. “When the pandemic came and there was a certain surge and the need of PPE it created a disruption in the supply lines.”

Not only did it create a disruption but it also created a crisis. To manufacture all of the PPE material that is created out of polypropylene sheets, which comes from plastic pallets, had largely gone overseas. Baackes said that PPE material was being done in Asia and they realized that with the pandemic and the shutdown the supply lines were broken. “What we saw was providers bidding against each other to buy and pay exorbitant prices. Then we saw that the government started buying. So now we had providers bidding against the government and you had the state bidding against the federal government and it was unseemly,” he said.

After seeing what was happening and realizing that supply lines were broken Baackes decided that there was a need for a better solution and the need of establishing a PPE strategic reserve in Southern California. In August of 2020 L.A. Care, IEHP, and HASC, in partnership with leaders from the business and economic development communities, formed the Southern California PPE Consortium to develop a plan that would ensure the region is not caught unprepared in the next health care emergency.

Baackes explained that the idea was to identify a manufacturer who would make the raw material and manufacture the finished product locally. After looking for the right candidate the Southern California PPE Consortium selected Dell Corning, a highly qualified vendor, that will provide quality, competitively priced PPE supplies to Southern California counties.

In order for the effort to work, the coalition founders are urging regional health care providers to join in and purchase a portion of their PPE orders through the unique joint venture. By committing a portion of PPE orders to this collaborative development, pooled with orders from other participants, the group can ensure a stable, affordable and locally produced supply chain. “I just want to emphasize our two primary goals, which is one to avoid a crisis again and price gouging and two, which is an economic development activity,” Baackes said.

Ten following counties will participate in the consortium. They include Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Imperial.  

Providers in these 10 counties who choose to participate in the strategic development will sign a letter of agreement with Dell Corning, with prices guaranteed for three years. 

According to the Consorium Program Overviewall PPE products are FDA approved, ASTM rated and widely available to the healthcare industry.

More information about the program can be foundhere.If you have questions, please email SoCalPPE@lacare.org.