Drug shortages disrupt patient care and put serious strain on hospital operations across the country. While many healthcare organizations struggle to play catch-up when shortages hit, smart pharmacy leaders are getting ahead of the game with real-time monitoring and predictive analytics. They’re stopping drug supply chain problems before they impact patient safety.
The Drug Shortage Problem is Intensifying
FDA drug shortage data found that 84% of all drugs in shortage were generic drugs, amplifying widespread concerns about quality of care as clinical teams are forced to substitute medications or delay treatments while they wait for alternatives to show up.
Beside being clinically inconvenient, they’re also expensive, with Hospital labor-shortage costs surging from $359M in 2019 to $894M in 2024, with another $200M each year spent on higher-priced substitute staff.
Often, hospital pharmacy staff are bearing the worst of it with the average time spent managing shortages more than doubling over the last few years, increasing from 10.5 hours per week in 2019 to 24.2 hours per week per general facility in 2024.
These pressures force healthcare teams to take time, energy and money away from patient care improvements and infrastructure investments just to handle emergency purchasing and shortage problems.
Quick fixes are poor band-aids
Drug shortages are now also lasting much longer than before. In 2023, the average duration of a drug shortage was over 3 years. When you’re dealing with problems that stick around for a long time, you can’t just find a quick workaround. You need backup plans for your backup plans, and that creates ongoing pressure on your budget and your clinical teams who have to keep adapting treatment approaches over and over again.
Where reactive approaches go wrong
The basic problem with reactive approaches is they’re always looking backward. By the time manual systems detect low inventory levels, multiple problems in the supply chain have already happened, and your window for being proactive has closed. This forces hospitals into crisis mode, where you have to make decisions under pressure without enough time for clinical review or cost analysis. Unfortunately, traditional shortage management has always relied primarily on manual tracking methods that just can’t keep up with how fast the pharmaceutical supply landscape changes.
Being reactive also means there’s a real chance you’ll have to compete for limited supplies as alternative providers become overwhelmed. And that drives up your purchasing costs substantially, contributing to billions in annual shortage-related expenses across healthcare systems while creating more work for already stretched pharmacy staff.
Real-Time Monitoring Technologies for Proactive Shortage Prevention
Proactive shortage management starts with real-time monitoring systems that surface early risk signals long before a stockout occurs. Hospitals rely on authoritative resources like the FDA Drug Shortage Database and industry research such as Wolters Kluwer’s analysis of real-time surveillance to understand emerging threats, but manual monitoring can’t keep pace with supply-chain volatility.
Scalable Solutions for Drug Shortage Prevention
By integrating predictive analytics with real-time inventory monitoring, hospitals gain both speed and foresight. Predictive systems identify where shortages are most likely to occur, while real-time data confirms developing risks. Together, these tools create a feedback loop that strengthens decision-making and reduces the chance of surprise disruptions.
Bluesight developed ShortageCheck to help hospitals anticipate and respond to drug shortages quickly. The platform aggregates health system inventory data with supply data from manufacturers, wholesalers, and hospitals nationwide to give pharmacy teams a unified view of shortage risks.
With ShortageCheck, hospitals can:
- Identify potential shortages earlier than manual monitoring methods allow.
- View up-to-date inventory levels and usage rates system-wide.
- Receive alerts on supply disruptions before they create clinical impact.
- Plan alternative sourcing strategies with data-driven confidence.
Instead of operating in crisis mode, pharmacy directors can manage shortages proactively with the information they need at their fingertips.
Building a Resilient Pharmacy Supply Chain
The drug shortage crisis is not going away. But hospitals can minimize its effects by adopting real-time monitoring and predictive analytics with ShortageCheck. This solution helps pharmacy leaders move beyond reactive practices to build a resilient supply chain that protects both patient safety and hospital budgets.