Improving Healthcare Supply Chain Resilience During Extreme Weather Events

Damage to coastal and inland communities in the United States from extreme weather events has increased dramatically in recent years and the decade of the 2010s was particularly harsh. These violent storms damage civil infrastructure systems, such as transportation, power, water and sewer, and communications, resulting in many people losing access to healthcare services. These breakdowns in the healthcare supply chain can be relatively minor, e.g., a pharmacy closed for a few hours, or life‐threatening, e.g., when dialysis or radiation treatment for cancer is unavailable for days or weeks. In 2017, more than 1,500 deaths were attributed to delayed or interrupted healthcare in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. This paper describes how damage to civil infrastructure from an extreme weather event can disrupt the delivery of critical healthcare services, how such disruptions impact those in need of services, and offer suggestions for improving the resilience of the healthcare supply chain.