Supply chain technology and risk management firm Resilinc is responding to increased demand for critical healthcare supplies by launching the Resilinc Exchange, an online clearinghouse designed to match available inventory with hospitals that need items to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, including personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies. In a webinar held Thursday, the company outlined plans for the exchange, which officials say they hope to launch by mid April.

Resilinc is partnering with representatives from the health care and logistics sectors to create the exchange, which will allow group purchasing organizations (GPOs), distributors, and hospitals to connect and exchange inventory and to access donated inventory from manufacturers and other organizations. The program is designed to digitize and broaden a system that is largely done informally and manually between trading partners today, according to Resilinc.

The exchange will be free for all U.S. hospitals through September, according to Resilinc Founder and CEO Bindiya Vakil. Resilinc has held biweekly webinars on the spread of COVID-19 and its impact on the global supply chain since late January.

"We have been tracking this problem since January and we have seen that the healthcare [supply chain] has been one of the hardest hit," she said during Thursday's webinar, pointing to critical shortages of PPE and basic sanitary supplies such as hand sanitizer, as well as rising demand for ventilators and other equipment.

Resilinc is working with large health care organizations and GPOs such as Stanford Health and Premier as well as logistics giant UPS to get the exchange up and running.

Graeme Dykes, Resilinc's managing director, healthcare transparency initiative, described the exchange as an all-in approach to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This is about helping each other in the supply chain," Dykes told webinar attendees. "This is 'everyone in' to fight [this pandemic]."