Hospitals should plan for their supply chain expenses to climb in 2027, with the prices for indirect spending categories like IT, construction and even food projected to grow at an even faster rate than those for drugs, Vizient warned in its most recent forecast report.
Vizient’s latest twice-yearly report mapped out overall supply chain price inflation of 3.39% for 2027, an increase of 0.61 percentage points compared to the forecast it released in February for the 12-month period beginning in H2 2026.
The primary culprits, Vizient research and intelligence director Jeff King told Fierce Healthcare, are AI demand and elevated costs of logistics and energy that are being felt across the world.
Projected inflation among pharmaceuticals, a frequent area of concern due to its scale and the visibility of high drug prices, is 3.54%, up 0.7 percentage points from half a year prior and driven by higher costs in the ambulatory space.
However, it’s non-pharmacy prices that are growing faster—indirect spend and purchased services are on track for 4.73% inflation in 2027, up 0.88 percentage points from six months prior, due in large part to technology needs and broader macroeconomic trends affecting costs, Vizient said.
Included in the former is a 6.29% projected inflation for IT hardware/software, which when further broken down includes an 8.5% increase in IT security, 8% increase in IT hardware and accessories and 7.5% increase in IT software and licensing.
"AI is increasing demand for the computing infrastructure that powers modern technology—from data storage to servers and IT services," King explained. "As demand grows across industries, healthcare organizations are competing for many of the same resources, contributing to higher technology and medical equipment costs and reinforcing the need for thoughtful investment planning."
Capital equipment medical and non-medical prices are projected at respective increases of 3.43% and 4.15%, with a key driver of the former being purchases of patient monitoring tech, Vizient noted.
When it comes to these technology purchases, “closer coordination among IT, supply chain, finance and operational leaders to ensure long-term cost predictability and sustained organizational value is needed,” Vizient wrote in the report.
Technology purchases join other indirect spend categories in their susceptibility to broader market dynamics, Vizient noted. The 4.7% projected inflation in construction, for instance, means that organizations must now more heavily weigh procurement strategy in their strategic project planning.
Other expected price jumps in utilities like water services (4.45%) and electricity (3.9%), not to mention overall food spend (4.16%) will similarly contribute to hospital cost pressures.
"Elevated logistics and energy costs, as higher ocean shipping rates, firming truckload pricing and expensive diesel increase manufacturing, import and distribution expenses," King said. "Resin prices remain volatile due to petroleum feedstock and energy costs, while steel and aluminum prices continue to face upward pressure from tariffs and supply constraints, raising costs for device components, packaging and capital equipment."
These trends and their projected impact on prices reinforces “the need for stronger governance over purchased services, technology investments, facilities planning, and long-term infrastructure planning, particularly as organizations balance modernization efforts against continued margin pressure,” Vizient advised in the report.
All of that isn’t to say that pharmaceutical spend inflation isn’t still a major consideration. That 3.54% projected 2027 price inflation includes a projected 3.64% increase for ambulatory drugs and 2.85% increase for projected acute drugs.
Specialty and complex medications are looking at a 4.04% increase, led by oncology drugs (25.59% of pharmacy spending, 4.41% projected cost increase) and autoimmune/anti-inflammatory therapeutics (23.39% of pharmacy spending, projected 4.1% cost increase). And spending on self-administered drugs is projected to increase by 3.62%—a substantial jump from the 2.43% of six months prior thanks in part to GLP-1s.
For these, Vizient noted that utilization growth could be the greater financial threat than price increases, and advised hospitals to consider contracting (a service Vizient offers) and to keep a keen eye on the distribution of high-cost drugs through specialized distribution channels.
“Organizations that treat pharmacy as an integrated component of growth, access, and financial planning are better positioned to manage both cost and outcomes in this evolving care environment,” its report reads.
Vizient noted that the projected price increases land amid a toughening financial landscape for hospitals, whose margins already lag 2025 ahead of reimbursement headwinds and broader shifts in utilization. As decisions on spending within individual cost categories, such as tech, increasingly influence how care is actually being delivered, “the interconnected nature of these decisions should change how leaders approach non-labor expense planning,” the report advised.
“Price movement remains important, but evaluating inflation in isolation is no longer sufficient. A price increase in one category may be manageable on its own; but when combined with higher volume, site-of-care shifts, payer controls, supply disruption, or infrastructure needs, the financial impact becomes greater,” Vizient wrote.