How Drug Shortages Could Disrupt Hospital Operations and Strain Patient Care

Drug shortages continue to create significant financial and operational strain on hospitals, impacting both patient care and workforce efficiency. In a video interview with Pharma Commerce, Boyede Sobitan, global healthcare strategy lead, and Annika Matas, senior director of product management and business operations, supplies and sensors—both with Zebra Technologies—they describe how hospitals are increasingly forced to adapt to these challenges, often in unsustainable ways.

From a patient care perspective, the absence or delay of critical medications forces hospitals into difficult positions. Some have had to borrow drugs from neighboring institutions just to meet immediate needs. This creates not only logistical hurdles but also ethical concerns about equitable access to treatment.

Operational inefficiencies compound the problem. Sobitan noted that hospital staff sometimes misplace or unintentionally withhold highly sought-after drugs, leading to further shortages within the facility. Additionally, issues such as hospital diversions can exacerbate availability challenges, reducing reliability in already stressed systems. These situations underscore the importance of better inventory management and stronger oversight practices.

The impact extends beyond patient-facing concerns. Matas highlighted that nursing staff, whose primary role is to deliver direct patient care, often become entangled in logistical work. Nurses are spending increasing amounts of time tracking down medications, coordinating with pharmacy teams, or delaying procedures until necessary drugs arrive. This redirection of focus not only reduces staff efficiency but also heightens burnout risks in an already overstretched workforce.

Indirect costs quickly add up. Delayed treatments, longer hospital stays, and disruptions in surgical schedules strain financial resources and diminish overall hospital productivity. Ultimately, drug shortages create a ripple effect: patients experience delays in care, frontline staff face increased stress and inefficiencies, and hospital systems bear additional financial burdens.

Addressing these issues requires more robust supply chain solutions, improved communication between pharmacy and clinical teams, and greater systemic efforts to mitigate shortages before they impact patient safety and operational stability.

They also dive into the ways RFID and RTLS technologies can provide real-time visibility into medication inventory for hospital pharmacy teams; factors should hospitals consider when evaluating or implementing these systems to manage their medication inventory; the role these technologies could play in strengthening hospital supply chain resilience against future disruptions; and much more.

A transcript of their conversation with PC can be found below.

PC: How are drug shortages affecting hospitals financially and operationally, and what key factors are driving these impacts?

Sobitan: There are definitely impacted hospitals from an element of patient care,for sure, having patients wait on different drugs, not having drugs available. We are aware of cases where hospitals are borrowing from other hospitals to have drugs to provide for their patients.

A lot of this can be handled from an operational standpoint. You have practices whereby a pharmacy tech might necessarily take a drug to a nurse, and a nurse might know that drug is highly sought after, and might forget that she stored it somewhere. We have a lot of instances where we have that, as well as just sometimes hospital diversions, if we're just going to be honest.

Matas: think the side effect that's really important beyond the patient itself is also the extra time and effort that it requires the nursing staff. The staff, whose primary job is patient care, is then diverted to spending time on logistics, on locating supplies, delaying procedures because they're still waiting for medications to come in and become available. There's the direct impact, and then there is the indirect impact on the efficiency and the time that the nursing staff has to spend.