Business continuity during COVID-19

May 2020

At Cardinal Health, we are a mission-driven company, which means we have a unique responsibility to support our customers and their patients during the current COVID-19 public healthcare crisis. While your CRM has been keeping you up-to-date with regular progress reports, here’s a look at the processes and solutions 3PL Services has implemented to respond to this unprecedented situation, including helping our clients make strategic pivots to better serve patients and their providers.

• Across the industry, many pharma companies have pulled back on field sales, as healthcare providers focus on patient care and restrict office access. According to a recent IQVIA COVID-19 Market Impact Report, total HCP detailing has declined by more than 50 percent due to sales force suspensions and access restrictions. Remote details via email, online or video/teleconference have increased accordingly by 225 percent. Clients have responded to reduced physician office access by “flipping the switch” on their rep-delivered sample programs to direct-to-physician sampling. Whether 3PL Services currently handles your samples program or not, this is a solution we are happy to discuss with you. Please contact your CRM to learn more.
• Our manufacturing, operations and front-line employees in our distribution centers and warehouses – including 3PL Services – are critical to the supply chain and continue to work onsite.  3PL Services has remained focused on maintaining full operational capabilities, with 100% of orders going out on time.
• We are limiting visitors and third-party vendors to our facilities to minimize potential exposure to our employees. While many new prospective clients have missed out on in-person tours of the 3PL Services warehouse, they have been able to experience the scope and efficiency of our operation through a virtual video tour, hosted by our Director of Warehouse Operations, Jason Cook. Even if you’re already familiar with our warehouse, this video tour may be a helpful refresher to share with your extended teams.
• We implemented strict travel restrictions for our employees, particularly for airline travel. While our sales teams and CRMs will remain actively engaged in servicing customers, we have asked them to change in-person meetings to phone calls or video conferences over the next several weeks.  Over the last 30 days, we have conducted more than 25 virtual quarterly business reviews.

These measures reflect our commitment to doing all we can to ensure our global healthcare supply chain continues to operate as safely and effectively as possible. We will continue to closely monitor the COVID-19 outbreak, adjust our protocols as needed and provide additional information to customers and partners as it becomes available.

For additional information, please see our COVID-19 customer microsite, www.cardinalhealth.com/covid19.

Thank you for your understanding and continued partnership.