HIRC and Symmetric Health Solutions Partner to Strengthen Clinical Supply-Chain Resiliency by Fixing Item-Level Data
A new partnership targets fragmented item masters and unreliable product attributes that undermine procurement, substitution, and continuity of care.
HIRC welcomes Symmetric’s customer-first focus on trusted, secure item-level data and looks forward to advancing provider-designed standards that scale integration and reduce clinical variation.”
MINNEAPOLIS, MN, UNITED STATES, February 3, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative (HIRC) and Symmetric Health Solutions today announced a strategic partnership to address the single biggest upstream barrier to resilient healthcare supply chains: fragmented, unreliable item-level product data.— Jesse Schafer
Accurate, attribute-rich item-level data is the upstream enabler of procurement accuracy, validated substitution at the point of care, and end-to-end automation across ERPs, EHRs and point-of-use systems.
Symmetric operates a nightly-refreshed, provider-scale catalog measured in the tens of millions of item records and distills that scale into the clinician-facing attributes that matter most — UDI linkage, country of origin, tariff exposure, validated substitutes and other operational fields that directly support procurement, point-of-care substitution and automated workflows. Built for operational uptake, Symmetric’s data is designed to flow into provider systems through deep ERP/EHR integrations, accelerate automation and reduce manual reconciliation. Symmetric favors a standards-first, non-proprietary approach and will support HIRC members with rapid, complimentary data assessments and a supplier-focused working group to surface immediate, provider-led priorities.
Root-cause focus. The partnership targets structural barriers — fractured item masters, sparse or inconsistent attributes and limited, non-provider-directed access — that create manual work, clinical variation, and brittle clinical and operational workflows across health systems.
Scale + conversion. Symmetric’s operational model (large, nightly-refreshed catalog + attribute libraries + ERP integrations) converts raw data scale into the specific, measurable fields clinicians and supply-chain teams need, enabling outcomes such as higher attribute completeness, faster validated substitution, and reduced reconciliation burden.
Standards-first, provider-led progress. Rather than creating proprietary taxonomies, Symmetric will work to align and improve existing standards (UDIs and established classifications), matching HIRC’s member-governed, standards-centric model and helping create durable interoperability.
Immediate member value. Beginning with initial HIRC members, the collaboration will deliver concrete near-term supports — rapid, no-cost data assessments, a supplier working group to prioritize actionable fixes, and joint demonstrations at HIRC Academy — so providers can quickly see where data improvements deliver operational and clinical returns.
“We’re proud to partner with HIRC to deepen access to reliable, item-level product data. By prioritizing data depth, trustworthiness, and secure provider-directed access, we can build the dependable foundation health systems need for integration, automation, and resilient operations.” — Rich Kucera, CEO, Symmetric Health Solutions
About HIRC
The Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative (HIRC) is a non-profit, member-driven consortium that strengthens healthcare supply-chain resilience to protect continuity of patient care. HIRC brings providers, suppliers, and partners together to turn shared resiliency and transparency standards into sourcing-ready, measurable tools that reduce risk and support real-world procurement and operational decisions.
About Symmetric Health Solutions
Symmetric Health Solutions builds provider-scale item-level product data and enrichment to help health systems normalize item masters, operationalize UDIs and attribute data, and deliver the operational fields needed for substitution, procurement and automation. Symmetric supports more than 1,200 hospitals and emphasizes standards-aligned, operational integration.
Jesse Schafer
Healthcare Industry Resilience Collaborative
schafer.jesse@hirc.org
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