Care moves home, reshaping healthcare logistics

Home delivery raises the stakes for final-mile execution

Because of telemedicine, remote monitoring, speciality therapies and advances in treatment, more care is taking place in patients’ homes. Healthcare supply chains, historically designed around hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, must increasingly support individualised deliveries to residential locations.

What’s changing for healthcare distribution

Patient-to-home supply chains can include a wide variety of products, including remote monitoring devices, diagnostic kits, home dialysis equipment and speciality pharmacy deliveries., whose delivery requirements differ from traditional business-to-business healthcare distribution.

Speciality pharmaceuticals may require temperature-controlled transportation, while durable medical equipment may require scheduled delivery, retrieval, refurbishment or redeployment.

As care becomes more distributed, the final mile becomes a more visible part of the patient experience. Missed deliveries, temperature deviations, lost packages and unclear communications can disrupt treatment or require replacement deliveries.

What healthcare shippers should consider

• Align delivery windows with treatment schedules, product stability requirements and patient availability.
• Establish service levels based on product risk, value, temperature requirements and time sensitivity.
• Evaluate whether logistics providers can deliver consistent service across urban, suburban and rural markets.
• Ensure monitoring processes for temperature-sensitive products at every leg in the supply chain.
• Minimise unnecessary handoffs and maintain clear chain-of-custody documentation.
• Plan reverse logistics in advance for reusable devices, rental equipment, packaging and diagnostic materials.
• Create response procedures for failed delivery attempts, address problems, weather disruption, product damage and temperature excursions.

Medtech portfolio changes create supply chain complexity

Spin-offs and divestitures represented about a third of strategic medtech deal value in 2025, according to a Bain & Company report.

These transactions can require companies to separate manufacturing operations, suppliers, inventory, warehouses, transportation contracts, technology and customer-service processes. Shared logistics networks can be particularly difficult to unwind without disrupting service or creating stranded costs.

Bain notes that medtech organisations need the ability to separate manufacturing and supply chains, disentangle quality systems and minimise stranded costs as these pieces of larger companies change hands.

What medtech shippers should consider

• Early in any transaction, identify shared suppliers, facilities, inventory, transportation contracts, technology and quality processes.
• Build transition plans around customer and patient service requirements, not only the legal transaction date.
• Clearly define ownership of raw materials, finished goods, consigned inventory, returns and obsolete products.
• Determine which carrier agreements, pricing arrangements and operating procedures can transfer to the new organisation.
• Take the opportunity to reassess inventory placement, distribution locations, transportation modes and future capacity needs.

Healthcare tariff outlook

How Russia and Iran sanctions could affect healthcare supply chains

New legislation expanding sanctions against Russia and Iran authorises tariffs of up to 100% on imports from countries that purchase Russian energy or facilitate sanctions evasion. China and India could face exposure, but actual tariff levels will depend on implementation decisions and potential waivers.

Healthcare companies may have exposure through finished pharmaceuticals, active ingredients, medical devices, components, packaging materials and other medical supplies sourced from China and India.

• Carefully review country-of-origin data across finished products, ingredients, components, as well as packaging materials.
• Model tariff exposure alongside transportation, inventory, validation, regulatory and compliance costs.
• Evaluate safety-stock requirements for critical products with limited qualified suppliers.
• Identify products for which alternative sourcing would require supplier qualification or regulatory review.
• Avoid rapid sourcing changes that could introduce product-integrity or continuity-of-care risks.

Other tariff updates

• Trade tensions between the United States and Canada rose further as both parties imposed new tariffs on each other and the U.S. banned $1 billion worth of Canadian imports.
• The September U.S.-China summit produced several announcements. Most notably, both governments said they agreed to a new "30-for-30" framework that could reduce tariffs on approximately $30 billion of non-sensitive goods. A list of those goods has not been released.

For additional information on these developments, see the Trade Policy & Customs section of this report.

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