Promoting Resiliency and Mitigating Risk

Country of Origin, Tariffs, and Supply Chain Disturbances

Tariff-driven disruptions in healthcare supply chains are no longer hypothetical - they’re a real and growing threat. Symmetric empowers hospitals and health systems to mitigate risk, reduce costs, and make smarter procurement decisions by integrating our enriched Country of Origin (CoO) and tariff data directly into their existing workflows.

Key Supply Chain Resiliency Attributes in Symmetric

  • Country of Origin: Verified through FDA registrations, manufacturer websites, and label image capture. Coverage improved by 24% in the past four months.

  • Global Tariff Rates: Country-specific, item-level import tariffs. Updated daily.

  • Manufacturing Address: Includes detailed data on primary and secondary facilities (e.g., contract manufacturing, sterilization, remanufacturing).

  • Has Substitute: Indicates the presence of verified alternative products, ranked by substitute strength to aid rapid decision-making.

  • Vendor Information: Lists vendor names and catalog numbers for traceability across suppliers—not just the primary manufacturer.

  • Recall & Adverse Event Tracking: Includes live links to FDA recall notices and historical adverse event data for safety and compliance.

How Health Systems Leverage Symmetric’s Data

Spend & Shortage Risk Mitigation, Directly Integrated Into ERPs and Data Warehouses

  • Model potential tariff impacts on overall spend by item and CoO (tens of millions of dollars, which we can ascertain with our complimentary data audit above).

  • Crosswalk suppliers and SKUs not currently on contract

  • Monitor fill-rate disruptions segmented by tariff exposure

  • Push back on unjustified invoice tariff costs with data-backed support

  • Prepare for sourcing interruptions using address-level intelligence

Operational Planning & Procurement Strategy

  • Identify and fill data gaps for high-spend or high-risk product categories

  • Surface equivalent substitutes for critical or tariffed items

  • Capture label-level data to improve multi-country sourcing accuracy

  • Drive sourcing diversity and cost efficiency across categories

Why Country of Origin (CoO) Matters Beyond Tariffs

While tariffs are a significant cost and policy driver, Country of Origin data plays a far broader role in healthcare supply chain resilience. Knowing where a product is manufactured enables hospital systems to anticipate, respond to, and recover from a wide range of operational risks.

Here’s why CoO is essential:

  • Geopolitical Risk & Global Disruptions: Regional instability, natural disasters, pandemics, and export restrictions can halt production and delay shipping. CoO data lets you assess exposure and build contingency plans—before disruptions occur.

  • Fill Rate and Lead Time Volatility: Fill rates can vary significantly based on region. CoO allows hospitals to segment vendors and SKUs by sourcing geography, helping forecast and stabilize procurement cycles.

  • Adverse Event and Weather Patterns: Some regions may experience higher rates of manufacturing defects or recall activity. CoO data enables comparative safety analysis and quality surveillance across geographies.

  • FDA & Regulatory Tracing: For pharmaceuticals and devices, origin country impacts regulatory status, import approvals, and supplier vetting. CoO is required for many forms of compliance reporting.

  • Resilience and Redundancy Planning: Diversifying vendors across countries of origin helps avoid over-reliance on single regions. CoO data is a foundation for building multi-source, high-resilience procurement strategies.

  • Ethical Sourcing & ESG Compliance: Visibility into CoO supports human rights, labor condition monitoring, and ethical sourcing standards that are increasingly mandated by health systems and government contracts.

With Symmetric, hospitals gain the intelligence to anticipate geopolitical risk, reduce costs, and ensure continuity of care—even during public health emergencies.


📄 Download our latest industry paper here: The New Pandemic: Tariff Impact on Healthcare Supply Chain
📩 Reach out to our team above to learn how Symmetric can support your sourcing and spend visibility goals