Innovation Fuels Optimistic Start to New Fiscal Year for MedShare

Enhanced online ordering experience for charitable clinics and medical mission teams

Through MedShare’s work with our country’s network of free and charitable clinics, we understand the incredibly valuable role community healthcare providers play in public health. Every dollar we can help them save on the essential medical supplies and equipment they need to save lives can help them bridge gaps in funding for direct patient care. The same can be said for medical mission teams from all over the country that rely on MedShare’s inventory of donated medical supplies to help support their life-saving work in healthcare-challenged communities around the world.

To better serve these charitable healthcare providers, MedShare gave each partner access to our robust inventory management system two years ago – enabling them to place their medical supply orders online. While it was a good first effort, the ordering process was a little more complicated than we would have liked. So this month, thanks to generous donations by cherished MedShare partner, Buckhead Church, and renowned digital marketing agency Terra, MedShare will launch a new, streamlined ordering interface that will provide for an exceptionally enhanced, user-friendly online experience for all of our partners.

AI-powered app a key new sorting innovation, enhancing accuracy

Hospitals, private practices and manufacturers donate thousands of perfectly usable surgical and medical instruments to MedShare each year. Given that there are literally hundreds of varieties of these instruments, each designed for specific tasks and procedures, it presents a huge challenge for our volunteers who do not have medical expertise to sort these items accurately. This can often innocently lead to misclassification and overall inefficiency.

But now, thanks to long-time MedShare supporters Daya and Anjali Menon, MedShare has a fast, accurate and efficient solution for sorting our surgical steel items. Interfacing with an AI-powered 4-million-item surgical instrument directory, volunteers can now scan, identify, and categorize instruments instantly – significantly reducing human error, expediting the sorting process, and enhancing the volunteer experience all at the same time.

Virtual biomedical training & support services key to partner sustainability

Through a very generous donation from long-time partner, BD, MedShare recently completed the delivery of 92 new portable ultrasound units to free and charitable clinics in 30 states across the U.S. This generous donation will dramatically enhance access to vital diagnostic imaging services for underserved populations, particularly in rural and low-income communities.

This was the largest single biomedical equipment donation ever facilitated by MedShare in the U.S. The sheer scope of the project presented a unique challenge: How could MedShare ensure that clinicians from 59 charitable healthcare providers scattered across the country were successfully prepared to operate and maintain the new equipment?

This training is a critical sustainability measure for the clinics since many of which lack the resources and technical expertise to care for biomedical equipment and fully integrate these tools into their healthcare offerings. So, in order to make sure that the ultrasounds could begin to make an impact as soon as possible, the MedShare Biomedical Services team had to quickly innovate—shifting from traditional onsite training to a virtual training model hosted by the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics (NAFC). This meant that 114 clinicians throughout the country could be trained within mere weeks – a model that proved to be efficient, cost-effective and incredibly well-received. While still a work in progress, virtual training will ultimately serve as the foundation for MedShare’s future biomedical education efforts both here in the U.S. and around the world,

Adapting to change and measuring impact in a profound way.

Thanks to the 2025 BD Difference in a Day Marathon facilitated by Taproot Foundation, the BD team and MedShare recently collaborated on a critical project to create a user-friendly database tool that enables MedShare to calculate and report a monthly, year-to-date (YTD), and annual Patient Impact Metric for reporting purposes. This measurement tool includes a framework for efficiently processing and analyzing data, reducing manual effort, and improving MedShare’s ability to communicate our impact.

Given that MedShare recently transitioned from a volume-based impact model to a more nuanced and compelling patient impact calculation, it was important to streamline data collection and analysis in order to generate customized impact reports.

This is extremely important for an organization like MedShare for many reasons:

• Demonstrates Accountability and Transparency
  Donors, grantmakers, and stakeholders want to know how their contributions are making a difference.
• Helps Attract and Retain Funders
  Funders are increasingly data-driven; they want evidence of return on investment (ROI)—not financially, but in terms of social good. Well-documented impact makes it easier to apply for grants and build long-term donor relationships by showing value and effectiveness.
• Improves Program Effectiveness
  Metrics help identify what’s working and what needs improvement.
• Helps Guide Strategic Decision-Making
  Data informs planning, growth, and resource allocation.
• Builds Credibility and Advocacy Power
  Reliable impact data enhances reputation and legitimacy with governments, partners, and the public.

We are very thankful to BD for this valuable opportunity to ensure that our day-to-day activities are aligned with long-term impact, in turn helping us stay on course and tell our story in the most compelling way possible.