Mary M. Mushinsky

Governor Lamont has joined with the governors of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware in announcing a joint multi-state agreement to develop a regional supply chain for personal protective equipment, other medical equipment, and testing.

This group of states would join in an agreement to:

• Cooperate in identifying regional needs of PPE and medical equipment (e.g.: masks, gowns, ventilators)
• Aggregate demand and realize better pricing and delivery reliability/performance.
• Joint or independent state procurements - identifying best practices / quality control / responsible vendors
• Identify in-country, in-region and in-state suppliers who can scale up to meet demand over the next three months
• Develop new, regional suppliers with the goals of protecting the supply chain from disruption
• Among the five states – NY/NJ/CT/DE/PA – that have joined forces, the collective view is that there is enough demand to create attractive incentives to support the development of these new, regional supply chains

In addition, the group is also discussing how to collectively explore emerging technologies on an ongoing basis to take advantage of the potential that alternative methods of production for existing products present. For example, 3D Printers may represent an attractive alternative to manufacturing some products, and oxygen hoods may be an effective and less expensive alternative to ventilators for some patients.