FAQs

Pharmaceutical Manufacturers that own the license for a product and Pharmacies/Hospitals that dispense product can use Product Availability Intelligence. Currently, Product Availability Intelligence supports data for US National Drug Codes (NDCs) only.

Product Availability Intelligence predicts shortages using a predictive analytics model, which is a type of machine learning. The Product Availability Intelligence prediction model collects data from two sources:

• TraceLink, which provides data about the products (e.g. NDCs) that your company is licensed to view.
• The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP), which provides data about current and past product shortages that occur in the United States.

The prediction model digests this data and uses advanced mathematics to determine how likely it is that a shortage of a specific product will occur up to 90 days in the future. Typically, prediction models become more accurate over time as they continue to collect and interpret data—the more data the prediction model consumes, the more accurate its predictions will be.

Product Availability Intelligence generates new predictions daily, which Owners can monitor. These predictions are available in CSV format and are accessed through an SFTP connection.

By default, Companies that Own Product Availability Intelligence receive access to shortage prediction for all the available NDCs that PAI can provide. Alternatively, companies can provide their NDC list and get the shortage predictions for their specific NDCs.

The frequency that you check the predictions is up to you, but Product Availability Intelligence generates new shortage predictions daily.

Think of predicting a product shortage like predicting the weather. The closer you are to the date that the product shortage will occur, the more accurate the prediction will be. It is a good idea to monitor predicted shortages to confirm whether the shortage is likely to occur so that you can take action on it.

Before taking action on a predicted shortage, consider how likely the shortage is to happen by interpreting the prediction's forecast, probability, and accuracy. If a shortage is forecasted for the near future and has high probability and high accuracy, then the shortage is more likely to happen. If a shortage is forecasted for far in the future and has low probability and low accuracy, then the shortage is less likely to happen or might need to be monitored for changes as the forecasted time period gets closer.

If the predicted shortage seems likely, start monitoring the predictions from Product Availability Intelligence daily, and begin moving forward with a plan to correct the shortage. For example, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers might put limits on the orders that they fill or procure more raw materials and increase production, while Pharmacies/Hosptials might look for alternative sources for procuring the product.

TraceLink apps are extended through solutions, which pull together assets that define how the app looks and functions when users interact with it (i.e. the app's data model, pages workflows, roles, and policies). Solutions available through the Marketplace Catalog can be saved and configured to meet a company's specific use cases and business needs. For more information on solutions and configuring solutions for an app, see the Opus Solution Environment Help Center.

The Product Availability Intelligence app has one solution, which is also called Product Availability Intelligence. Owners interact with the Product Availability Intelligence using an SFTP connection or Web UI.

There are currently no roles available for Product Availability Intelligence. Roles are not currently required to use Product Availability Intelligence.

Passwords must be a minimum of 8 characters, must not be your email, and must include at least one:

• Numerical digit
• Lowercase letter
• Uppercase letter
• Special character

If your company was enabled on the Opus Platform from Track & Trace Services, the following password settings from Track & Trace Services apply:

• Number of previous passwords that cannot be reused.
• Number of login attempts allowed before the account is locked.
• Number of days until the password expires.

If your company was not originally enabled on Track & Trace Services, the following default settings apply to TraceLink SSO:

• The previous 6 passwords cannot be reused.
• 5 login attempts are allowed before the account is locked.
• Passwords expire in 30 days.