Mexico’s Government Turns to AI Amid Medicine Shortages

Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) workers publicized medication shortages through recent mobilizations, and President Claudia Sheinbaum has now introduced a government council to track medicines through the public health system. She acknowledged the workers’ complaints as legitimate. Public healthcare workers planned further protests that week, demanding better pay and working conditions.

Workers Raised the Alarm

The council, called the Advisory Council for the Digital Transformation of the Health Sector, is meant to improve the control, storage and distribution of medications. Its plan puts digital tools and artificial intelligence at the center of the state’s response to shortages reported by workers.

The proposed system would detect shortages, track warehouse inventory and speed deliveries to public hospitals and health centers. Those are plans, not a system already in operation: council members are expected to present initial projects in November, and the federal government plans to begin implementation in January 2027.

Deputy Health Minister Eduardo Clark said the program aims to identify medication needs in real time, improve inventory management and optimize distribution routes to reduce time and costs. If a pharmacy lacks a medicine, health workers would be able to check whether another health facility or warehouse has it and arrange delivery.

A Vast System to Track

Clark said the health sector uses approximately 3 billion units of medicines and medical supplies each year. They must be distributed among more than 1,000 hospitals and nearly 15,000 health centers and primary care units. The scale is enormous; the immediate burden of shortages falls on people seeking care and the workers trying to provide it.

Sheinbaum said shortages don’t always result from a failure to purchase medicines. Some products are bought but don’t reach facilities on time because of problems with storage, distribution and delivery. The government has also said it recently identified practices in which medicines from the public sector are sold privately, sometimes outside hospitals.

That account puts the problem inside the supply chain, after purchase as well as before it. The proposed technology would make inventory and movement more visible to the administration, while workers’ mobilizations have already made shortages publicly visible. The government’s next steps are to develop projects and implement its tracking system; the article provides no report that those plans have yet changed supplies at hospitals or health centers.

Automation Is the Government’s Answer

Sheinbaum described the goal as automating the process “from procurement, warehousing and arrival at the hospital pharmacy, to distribution across various hospital departments and delivery to patients,” so officials can know “the exact traceability of every medication.” Her explanation places the remedy in administrative control of the supply chain, from purchase to patient delivery.

The council will have two groups of experts. Its Advisory Board will include four researchers specializing in logistics, engineering, information systems and resource distribution. The Youth AI Team will consist of five people specializing in artificial intelligence. The source does not describe a role for healthcare workers or patients in designing the system.

The timetable leaves a gap between the complaints already aired in worker mobilizations and the planned start of implementation in January 2027. Meanwhile, public healthcare workers planned further protests over pay and working conditions. The state has recognized their complaints; its proposed answer is a system built to count, locate and route medicines across a sprawling public network.