The impact of COVID-19 on supply decision-makers: the case of personal protective equipment in Spanish hospitals.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been recognized as a trigger for redefining supply chains at the global level, and has created an intense debate within the academic community and among policy-makers and practitioners. Among other industries, health care has been dramatically hit by the scarcity of "medical products," specifically for personal protective equipment (PPE-like), due to supply chain disruptions coupled with dramatically increased demand. We aimed to analyze how the scarcity of PPE-like during the COVID-19 pandemic has modified the behavior of decision-makers in the PPE-like supply chain at the hospital level, and to explore what changes could be implemented to cope with future PPE-like shortages.