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Global Health Medical Surplus Recovery

While "Medical Surplus Recovery" is a fairly new term in Catholic health care ministry, there is no doubt that it is a practice used since the founding of Catholic health care. Sisters and brothers made due with the limited resources provided by their religious orders/communities, industries and physicians, etc., to serve the sick and poor. Today, there is a major change in providing unused or surplus items to those in the developing world: the intermediary organizations that collect and disperse surplus materials are called Medical Surplus Recovery Organizations or MSROs. Sometimes they are a part of the health system, and other times they are not-for-profit partners of our hospitals and systems, but regardless, we must make sure that our mission is being actualized by the operations of the MSRO.
Global Health

MSRO Network Code of Conduct

In March 2012, through the generosity of a grant by the Gerard Health Foundation, the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) engaged the Partnership for Quality Medical Donation (PQMD) to share leading practices and catalyze collaboration between their members, medical surplus recovery organizations (MSROs) and key stakeholders of the medical surplus industry. As a result, this Code of Conduct is the first significant milestone in a plan that leads to MSRO standards and eventually an opportunity for MSROs to be accredited.
Medical Surplus Code of Conduct
See all Video Case Studies

Sharing surplus equipment, supplies and medicines

Video Scenario & Expert Commentary

Sharing surplus equipment, supplies and medicines

Watch the video scenario and use the links below to see experts comment on the issue.

What are the key places where surplus is found?

What are key questions to ask an MSRO, or yourself if you are donating directly?

Who should be consulted to determine the needs and capability of the soliciting community?

How would you respond to an employee request to ship old items?

What is the best way to share medical surplus?

How can you engage employees around the mission?

Assessing an MSRO

Catholic health care ministry has an opportunity to be a catalyst in the development of MSRO industry standards that can significantly improve the impact of surplus donations made to the developing world. The key is to donate usable and appropriately sorted supplies and equipment to an organization that matches donations to needs identified by in-country solicitors.

The 2010 study of MSROs by CHA highlighted nine drivers — or nine key impact areas — that will allow MSROs to effectively serve more CHA members and create greater impact for the developing world.

The nine drivers come not only from the 2010 MSRO study, but also, are based on feedback from ministry and industry leaders as well as expertise from the CRS, WHO and the Partnership for Quality Medical Donations (PQMD). They represent the "best practices" of leading MSROs as assessed by CHA during the 2010 study.

A Summary of the Nine Key Drivers for Responsible Collection and Redistribution of Medical Supplies and Equipment Includes:

Organization

  • Leadership — An MSRO needs dedicated, full-time staffing.
  • Container Price/Value — An MSRO must find multiple funding streams and understand the realities of the end beneficiaries through relationships with those who solicit surplus on their behalf.
  • Staffing — An MSRO needs adequate staffing and effective volunteer recruitment and training.

Stakeholder Relationships

  • Hospitals — An MSRO must tap into hospital resources while leading them to make donations that would be effective in the developing world.
  • Beneficiaries — An MSRO must focus all of its efforts on the children, women and men in the developing world who benefit from the donated goods and services. An MSRO must also have an online, current database of surplus available. Solicitors can access the database, order surplus goods and following receipt of these goods, evaluate shipment content and process.
  • Business/Financial Partners — An MSRO needs to utilize technical and strategic strengths of health care organizations.

Operations

  • Sorting/Quality Management — An MSRO has to have the capacity and staffing to sort down to the individual item level and move short-dated items quickly.
  • Shipping/Distribution — An MSRO must take ownership of the entire process of shipping, from knowing and complying with customs regulations and laws to ensuring that shipments are received and that contents are correctly distributed.
  • Inventory Management — An MSRO must provide an online database so that solicitors can see available inventory. It should have less than a one-month backlog of items to sort and should have effective processes for intake.