Data sharing to help manage serious shortages of hospital medicines

An important role of the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) is to minimise the impact of medicine shortages on patients and healthcare professionals. We are continually developing and improving management actions and strategies in collaboration with our stakeholders to facilitate this.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed a national approach for modelling the availability of medicines for patients with COVID-19 on ventilators in intensive care units (ICUs). Following the pandemic, we expanded the ICU model to work for any important medicine used in a hospital setting.

This model, which we call the Dynamic Model of Medicine Availability version 2 (DMMA v2), uses supply and demand data to forecast the availability of medicines under different conditions. This allows us to:

• co-develop effective strategies for mitigating shortages of medicines with serious impact on public health in the hospital setting with state and territory health departments, specialist health professionals and other relevant groups as needed
• support a nationally coordinated management approach to extend the availability of these medicines.

How we use shared data and availability modelling

During medicine shortages of national importance within the hospital setting, we collaborate with relevant supply chain groups and health authorities to share data about medicine supply and demand.

• We ask for data on both their current and future supply of medicines, as well as data about patient demand for the medicines in shortage. 
• The DMMA v2, which simulates the flow of medicine stock through the supply chain and hospitals, analyses the data and models the current and future supply landscape for the medicines in shortage. 
• Based on the modelling, the appropriate medicine shortages working group, which usually includes the sponsor and relevant health professional, pharmacy and wholesaler representatives, chooses the best specific management approach to support ongoing supply.

Who can share data?

Data sharing is voluntary. We may contact you to ask for data about the availability or use of a medicine if you are a:

• medicine sponsor 
• medicine wholesaler
• private hospital provider or hospital pharmacy
• representative for a state or territory health department.

Our medicine shortages data-sharing framework has more information about sharing data.