Phlow Corp., a U.S.-based, public benefit corporation committed to a bold mission of providing every American with access to affordable, high-quality essential medicines, joins in announcing the launch of a groundbreaking Children’s Hospital Coalition: Powered by PhlowTM (CHC). This first-in-kind coalition brings together some of the top children’s hospitals across the nation, in collaboration with Phlow, to provide certainty in availability and access for key medicines necessary to sustain life and conquer disease and to address the nation’s broken essential medicines supply chain.
“The care of America’s children is unnecessarily impacted by essential medicine shortages, which sometimes lead to compromised patient care, clinician frustration, and increased hospital pharmacy costs and inefficiencies,” said Eric Edwards, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder, president, and CEO of Phlow. “By empowering an innovative and unique coalition of the top children’s hospitals in the country, we will be able to work with visionary leaders to solve this chronic and vexing problem.”
Shortages of essential medicines for children are a persistent problem plaguing hospitals across the United States. A 2019 survey of 330 U.S. hospitals, including 29 children’s hospitals, demonstrated that medicine shortages disproportionately and uniquely impact children’s hospitals. (Vizient, 2020) The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed further vulnerabilities in the overall U.S. hospital supply chain, particularly regarding essential injectable medications. To address this issue, the CHC is charged with a mission to deliver on the promise of ensuring a reliable supply of high-quality, affordable essential medicines to treat children.
Currently, the 11 founding hospital members of the CHC are: Arkansas Children’s, Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, Children’s National Hospital, Children’s Wisconsin, Cincinnati Children’s, Cook Children’s, Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
“Far too often, the health care needs of children are not a priority. The coalition will draw attention to this important issue of shortages of essential medicines and more importantly, start to fix the problem,” said Kurt Newman, President and CEO of Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. “I know we can do better for children who require these life-saving treatments and cures, and I’m proud to join this great group of organizations in developing an innovative solution.”
The coalition is working together to further escalate this issue on the national agenda, to encourage children’s hospitals to join in this cause, and educate other hospitals on how this coalition will aid in ending shortages of essential medicines. Ultimately, the goal of the CHC is to increase the resiliency and reliability of the pediatric pharmaceutical supply chain. “We believe that supporting this national pediatric-focused initiative will improve access, quality, and the costs of care for children,” said Dan Hackman, Chief Commercial Officer of Phlow. “We are thrilled to support the CHC and look forward to working together to improve the pediatric-focused essential medicine supply chain.”
Coalition hospitals are collaborating to identify and prioritize the most needed essential medicines, including sterile injectable medicines and medications used to treat pediatric cancers and rare diseases. Phlow will work quickly to ensure a high-quality, reliable supply of these essential medicines and will provide transparent, cost-plus pricing for all coalition members under uniform long-term purchasing agreements. Through this collaboration, the CHC will work toward improving the delivery of pediatric care.
The founding members of the CHC, including Phlow, recognize that essential medicine supply is a critical problem nationwide and welcome new children’s hospital members to join in this bold initiative. Please visit www.childrenshospitalcoalition.org for more information on how to join the CHC.