Shortages of personal protective equipment, or PPE, used by health care professionals are posing a tremendous challenge to the United States health care system as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, PPE helps protect health care personnel from potentially infectious patients and materials. The CDC recently released a guide on strategies to optimize supplies of PPE. In addition to these guidelines, technology solutions are being implemented to enable more trustworthy information and accelerated discovery, resilience and adaptation to meet current medical supply demands.
For example, technology giant IBM launched its Rapid Supplier Connect solution on April 27, which leverages blockchain to help government agencies and health care organizations identify new, non-traditional suppliers that have pivoted to address the shortage of equipment, devices and supplies needed for COVID-19 relief efforts.
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