Reflections on the Pandemic: What We Do Matters

With the World Health Organization recently declaring the end of the Covid-19 global health emergency, I have been reflecting on the work our team did during these unprecedented times.

While our customers heroically fought COVID on the front lines, our team was at their side – yes, to provide the needed logistics to manage the crisis – but also as comrades in arms. Throughout the country, our team set up constant communication to act on changes as soon as they happen, rapidly repositioned equipment where it was needed most, and established new logistics pathways to handle the increase in urgent specimen movement orders for rapid testing and so much more.

While MedSpeeder stories from the pandemic abound, I want to highlight a few that were exceptional;

• When Washington State became the first U.S. epicenter for the pandemic, we were able to gather a stock of ventilators from a faraway veterinary distributor and move them for immediate patient care for MultiCare Health System.
• In the early days of the pandemic, vulnerable populations struggled to meet basic needs, like getting groceries. We partnered with Northwestern and Our Lady of Angels Food Pantry to deliver fresh produce and grocery staples to senior citizens in the area.
• When KOVAL distillery started using their facility to create hand sanitizer, we distributed it for them to the medical community and other Chicagoland institutions that needed it.
• We designed and implemented a logistics network in three days for a large state that needed to scale its COVID-19 testing capacity to serve patients.

Beyond these handful of stories, our customers have shared countless others of how our logistics support helped relieve some of the immense workload and mental load their teams had to carry. Perhaps more than all else, they have told us how important it was amidst so much upheaval, fear and uncertainty to have one thing on which they could always rely.

This, to me, is the thing we did best and that was the most important, the simple act of being there, which we did every day, in every operation across our thirty-two state footprint, without any interruption  For this act of being there, with perseverance and total commitment to our mission of delivering health, I thank every MedSpeeder, although that “thank you” only scratches the surface of the honor and gratitude I feel to be part of the MedSpeed team.