Article
Changing care models and ongoing supply chain volatility are making enterprise-wide coordination essential for anticipating demand and managing MedSurg strategy.
When we look at what's driving MedSurg demand, patient volumes and procedural growth are only part of the story.
Forces such as outpatient migration, pharmaceutical innovation, and geopolitical uncertainty are reshaping MedSurg demand. As care delivery evolves and supply chain volatility continues, organizations can no longer treat MedSurg strategy as a supply chain function alone. Clinical, supply chain, finance, and operational leaders must work together to anticipate demand shifts, align sourcing with changing care models, and strengthen organizational resilience.
While inflation continues to command attention, the more important question is how utilization itself is evolving. Demand isn't simply rising or falling—it's shifting across sites of care, clinical practice, and treatment pathways, with real implications for sourcing, contracting, and supply planning.
For health systems, the challenge is anticipating where utilization is headed and ensuring the right stakeholders are aligned before those shifts become visible in spend reports, shortages, or budget variances.
| Category | Estimated inflation |
|---|---|
| Medical and surgical products | 3.05% |
| Medical supplies | 3.21% |
| Surgical supplies | 2.62% |
Several market forces are expected to shape MedSurg demand, utilization patterns, and sourcing strategies in 2027:
| Market force | MedSurg impact |
|---|---|
| Care migration | Product utilization continues shifting across ambulatory, clinic-based, and home care settings, reducing visibility into demand through traditional hospital purchasing channels |
| Evolving treatment pathways | Nonoperative care models and pharmaceutical innovations may alter procedure volumes, case mix, and associated supply utilization |
| Demographic trends | Aging populations continue to support demand for ophthalmic products, wound care, continence management, and other chronic-care-related categories |
| Supply chain disruption | Geopolitical uncertainty, tariffs, and raw material volatility may influence product availability, sourcing decisions, and inventory strategies |
| Operational resilience | Organizations are increasingly balancing cost management with supply assurance, contract flexibility, and continuity planning. |
1. Care is no longer confined to the hospital—and neither is product demand.
We're seeing care continue to migrate across ambulatory settings, freestanding clinics, home-based care, and direct-to-consumer models. As it does, a growing share of MedSurg utilization is moving outside traditional hospital purchasing channels. That shift can make product demand harder to track and create new challenges for forecasting, contracting, and supply planning across the continuum of care.
2. New therapies are rewriting utilization patterns.
Treatment innovation is changing how patients are managed—and, in turn, how products are used. Nonoperative treatment pathways and pharmaceutical advances are influencing procedural demand, case mix, and supply requirements. Vizient Strategy Intelligence projections suggest appendectomy volume declines associated with medical management may be moderating, while GLP-1 therapies are already influencing utilization across bariatric surgery and other procedural specialties. Rather than reducing demand across the board, these innovations are more likely to shift where utilization occurs, alter patient acuity, and reshape supply needs across service lines.
3. Visibility matters more when disruption is the norm.
Supply chain volatility hasn't gone away. Geopolitical disruption, tariff uncertainty, and raw material pressures continue to influence sourcing decisions across key MedSurg categories. Products that rely on petroleum-derived materials—including gloves, syringes, personal protective equipment, and disposable medical devices—remain particularly exposed to fluctuations in energy markets, refining capacity, and global trade dynamics. That's forcing many organizations to look beyond unit cost alone, balancing financial performance with supply assurance, continuity planning, and long-term resilience.
The forces reshaping MedSurg are influencing other spend categories as well. Explore our outlooks on pharmacy, indirect spend, laboratory, physician preference items (PPI), and capital.
Putting an enterprise-wide MedSurg strategy into practice requires four priorities:
| Priority | Executive action |
|---|---|
| Improve demand visibility | Incorporate purchasing, utilization, and site-of-care trends into forecasting processes to identify changes that may not be apparent through traditional hospital datasets alone. |
| Align supply planning with clinical change | Monitor the impact of evolving treatment pathways, pharmaceutical innovation, and changing procedural volumes on supply utilization and forecasting assumptions. |
| Strengthen supply resiliency | Strengthen supply resiliency Leverage sourcing and contracting strategies that balance cost, supply assurance, and operational continuity. |
| Coordinate planning across stakeholders | Align supply chain, clinical, operational, and financial leaders around emerging utilization trends, sourcing risks, supply disruptions, and demand planning assumptions. |
With projected inflation of 3.05% and continued shifts in care delivery, clinical practice, and supply chain dynamics, historical utilization patterns are becoming less reliable predictors of future demand. Instead, future demand will increasingly be shaped by where care is delivered, how patients are treated, and the resilience of the supply networks that support them.
For health systems, that raises a new challenge: understanding not just how much demand to expect, but where it’s moving and what’s driving the change. Strengthening visibility, aligning forecasting with evolving clinical practice, and building resilience into sourcing decisions will be critical to managing costs, maintaining continuity of supply, and responding effectively as demand continues to shift.
Rachael Zirkelbach, Anthony Guth, Emily Fitt, and Lee Kelley contributed to this article.
From Vizient services to related insights, explore our additional resources
Talking points to build the business case for strategic MedSurg investment
Vice President of Core Essentials
Chad Mitchell is vice president of core essentials at Vizient, where he leads strategy, contracting, and program execution across medical and surgical product categories that are fundamental to the day-to-day operations of health systems. Since joining Vizient in 2018, he has played a pivotal role in advancing the organization’s sourcing and supply chain strategy, including leading the COVID-19...
Vice President of Medical/Surgical, Clinically Preferred, and Laboratory
Caryn Staib, RN, MBA, MHSA, serves as vice president of medical/surgical, clinically preferred, and laboratory at Vizient. In this role, she leads a team of category subject matter experts focused on driving client value through category optimization, cost savings, and utilization and waste reduction...
Senior Director, Contract Services, Vizient
Beth Grimsley is senior director, contract services, at Vizient.
