A New Blueprint for a Resilient Pediatric Supply Chain

When medications are in short supply, children feel the impact most of all.

Although drug shortages persist across the entire U.S. health system, they disproportionally affect children and the hospitals that care for them.

But a first-of-its-kind collaboration initiated by the federal government and carried out by children’s hospitals and drug distributors could significantly strengthen the fragile pharmaceutical supply chain.

Launched as part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot, a six‑month pilot brought together seven children’s hospitals, the End Drug Shortages Alliance (EDSA), national distributors, and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) to test a new model that brings visibility across the supply system.

The collaborative approach allows children’s hospitals and medication distributors to share inventory data and proactively address challenges before they result in shortages.

The pilot’s results, outlined in a new report, show this unprecedented transparency across traditional boundaries is not just possible but feasible and scalable.

It provides a blueprint for a more resilient pediatric supply chain that would ensure more kids have access to the medicine they need when they need it.

The power of transparency

Drug shortages rarely occur suddenly. They develop over time, due to a variety of factors that often have more to do with a lack of access than a lack of supply. Information across the supply chain is fragmented, with manufacturers, distributors, and hospitals seeing only their portion of the picture.

Transparency gives a clearer, shared understanding of how supply is trending across the system.

That shared understanding enables more informed planning. Hospitals can have earlier conversations about inventory stewardship, reserve levels, and buffer strategies while supply is still stable. Distributors can better anticipate shifts in demand and respond before pressure builds. Together, stakeholders can identify emerging risks sooner and align decisions around patient need.

In short, transparency creates the conditions for coordinated decision-making before a crisis occurs.

Over time, this approach supports clearer pathways for collective action, earlier identification of warning signals, and more predictable outcomes for patients who depend on essential medications.

Testing the new model

To explore whether this approach could work in practice, the pilot focused on a small subset of cancer drugs. Participating hospitals submitted structured inventory data, while distributors shared national supply insights. EDSA aggregated and safeguarded the data, allowing participants to see trends without exposing individual hospital or competitor information.

The results demonstrated this kind of collaboration is feasible. When stakeholders were able to look at supply trends together, they could plan more deliberately and strengthen preparedness before disruptions affected patient care.

Children’s hospitals were a natural place to test this approach. They have a long history of working collaboratively and noncompetitively, guided by a shared commitment to children’s health. That culture makes it possible to explore system-level solutions that rely on trust, discipline, and collective responsibility.

CHA played an important role in supporting this work by convening hospitals, advising EDSA, and reinforcing governance that kept the focus on children’s access.

Transforming the supply chain

This effort lays the groundwork for a sustainable, scalable model that would transform our reactive supply system into a proactive one, heading off shortages long before they occur and strengthening access for children.

The next phase will focus on scaling this approach — reducing burden through automation, expanding participation, and moving from visibility to coordinated action.

Children deserve a supply chain designed with them in mind. Children’s hospitals are committed to building it.