Imagine a critical component used in a patient monitor suddenly moves to supplier allocation. A dashboard can alert the team to the shortage, but responding still requires a series of complex choices: Which products get the remaining supply? Is there time to qualify an alternate source? Who has the authority to decide? The opportunity for MedTech organizations is to strengthen the connection between sensing disruption, making informed decisions, and translating those decisions into timely action.

Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions survey of 100 MedTech supply chain executives shows a strong foundation to build on. Many leaders have invested in preparedness: 64% have strengthened supplier-risk monitoring, 59% have increased inventory buffers, and 56% have invested in visibility and traceability.Yet only 27% say their supply chains could recover from a disruption within two to four weeks.¹ For many, recovery still takes several months, which makes the speed of decisions and actions post disruption an important lever.

This is where decision intelligence comes in. It can strengthen supply chain resilience using a structured framework, helping teams act sooner, create value and reduce the impact of disruptions. ² Recent AdvaMed data underscores why this matters: in August, AdvaMed reported that 75% of surveyed medtech companies were experiencing memory chip constraints and 63% faced supplier allocation challenges.³ Substituting a regulated component takes engineering rework and regulatory review, so the room to maneuver often shrinks before a shortage shows up on a dashboard.

Many companies do not lack data. They struggle to connect the signals to the choices quickly enough. Eight in ten model on operational data, while only about half incorporate external signals. Both carry noise and both should be prioritized. As one medtech supply chain executive put it, AI’s real value is “noise cancellation”, finding the handful of signals, out of thousands, that require action today. ¹

That shift is already underway at scale: Gartner® predicts that, “By 2027, 50% of business decisions will have been augmented or automated by AI agents for decision intelligence.”, which in our view makes deliberate governance and human judgment more important rather than less.⁴

Even organizations that get the data can stall on governance. Only 43% of organizations have documented decision rights and escalation paths. In Deloitte’s survey, fast recovery, defined as recovering within two to four weeks, was not reported among organizations operating with ad hoc governance. Among fast recovery organizations, 74% use advanced tools such as simulation and scenario modeling, while 48% of the industry still relies on basic tools or ad hoc recovery approaches. ¹

The payoff shows up beyond continuity. Organizations with digitally enabled recovery capabilities are nearly three times as likely to report at least 4% operating margin improvement as those relying on ad hoc approaches, 60% versus 22%.¹ Resilience is often discussed as the ability to withstand disruption.But when constraints are persistent, the stronger advantage may be the ability to make the hard calls earlier and recover faster.

Before Boston, it’s worth asking your own team: if a critical supplier went down tomorrow morning, who would decide what happens next, and would they need a meeting to find out it was their call?

Join Rohini Prasad and fellow industry leaders for Future-Proofing MedTech Supply Chains in an Era of Constraints at The MedTech Conference on October 21.

Endnotes

1. Luis Hakim, Stephen Bradley, Alex Bredemus, Elizabeth Beck, Darshan Gosalia, and Apoorva Singh, “Digitally enabled supply chains make recovery speed a medtech differentiator,” Deloitte Insights, March 31, 2026.
2. Elizabeth Baker and Ryan Ernst, “Building supply chain resilience in uncertain times,” Deloitte, July 8, 2025.
3. Abby Pratt, “Memory chip shortages: Implications for medtech innovation and patient care,” AdvaMed, Aug. 17, 2026.
4. David Pidsley, Carlie Idoine, et al., “Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Decision Intelligence Platforms,” Jan. 26, 2026 (Accessible to Gartner clients only)
   GARTNER is a trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates.

Authors

Rohini Prasad, Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Rohini Prasad is a Principal at Deloitte helping clients transform supply chains and manufacturing operations. Her work focuses on end-to-end supply chain strategy, supply chain applications of artificial intelligence (AI), and smart manufacturing, with an emphasis on how emerging technologies can improve performance, resilience, and decision-making across complex operating environments. Her recent work includes Operating Model and Digital Supply Networks transformations, helping clients drive growth, build capabilities and integrate across operations silos. She has supported her clients in Medtech and heavy industries alike in visioning and executing digital capabilities that integrate AI, advanced analytics and simulations into the standard ways of working to drive operational excellence and top line growth.

Within Deloitte’s Supply Chain & Network Operations (SCNO) practice, Rohini works across Strategy & Innovation and Product Development & Operations. She leads the incubation of Deloitte’s emerging offerings for Supply Chain Decision Intelligence as well as Physical AI, exploring how intelligent technologies can connect digital decision-making with physical equipment, facilities, and operational environments.

Rohini brings a combination of strategic perspective and practical execution experience to discussions on how organizations can modernize supply chains, accelerate innovation, and build more adaptive manufacturing models.

Darshan Gosalia, Research Manager, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions
Darshan Gosalia is a research manager with the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. His research focuses on the latest trends, issues, and developments shaping the life sciences industry, covering key topics across both biopharma and medtech. He brings over a decade of cross-functional experience in the US life sciences and health care industry across research, strategy, marketing, and sales. Gosalia holds a master’s in biotechnology and entrepreneurship from New York University and an MBA in healthcare management from Goldey-Beacom College.