#lab logistics

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on hospitals and other healthcare institutions. In areas experiencing outbreaks, hospital staff members have been redeployed to handle COVID patients. Hospital rooms reserved for elective procedures have been turned into ICU beds. While these heroic actions have saved lives, they have challenged the finances of these organizations.

With the cancellation of elective surgeries and other routine healthcare procedures, many healthcare practices have seen a serious decline in revenue. Fortunately, this should be a temporary setback as researchers work toward a vaccine and the illness runs its course. In the meantime, every healthcare organization needs to look at ways to decrease spending until income levels return to normal.

Minimize Non-essential Spending

The COVID-19 pandemic provides several logistical challenges. To fulfill their primary purpose, healthcare institutions must ramp up certain parts of their operations. For example, processing COVID-19 specimen collection kits must have priority over other test results.

At the same time, these institutions must cut back on other sectors. Because income is not coming in as usual, healthcare institutions must take a serious look at their day-to-day operations as well as any planned special projects. Some healthcare practices have shifted their staff roles to prevent layoffs. Temporary furloughs may be necessary for nonessential staff. If your organization can pause new construction, renovations or other updates, it may help keep the facility within budget.

Negotiate with Vendors

The pandemic is a time when every part of the healthcare industry must work together. Most vendors understand that healthcare facilities are experiencing financial challenges. They also want to avoid the hit to their reputations that would come with a refusal to cooperate with healthcare providers. Your organization should reach out to its vendors to work out a temporary payment plan or discounted rates during the emergency. Cooperative vendors can leverage their participation into positive publicity.

Review Insurance Policies

Insurance coverage for healthcare organizations is expensive. It is a necessary budget item, but it does not provide an immediate benefit during a crisis. By contacting its insurance provider, a healthcare organization may be able to negotiate a reduced rate in light of the special circumstances. It is also possible that, due to COVID-19’s status as a national and state emergency, your institution may be able to make a claim for lost business revenue.

Outsource Logistics

Many of the people who get involved with healthcare and medicine do so because they are passionate about caring for others. It is not until they get involved with the hospital or laboratory setting that they realize the amount and cost of the logistics involved. Laboratory management is more than determining test results. Moving samples from a collection site to a lab safely and accurately is a critical part of patient care.

Outsourcing lab logistics can save your organization both time and money. Because the logistics partner specializes in working with healthcare organizations, it already has the necessary infrastructure to keep things running smoothly. In the case of COVID-19, partners like Path-Tec can reliably supply a hospital with COVID-19 specimen collection kits and transportation materials. We have the resources to handle the safe transport of specimens and can track their progress in real time. This frees your staff from several laboratory management duties while providing more accurate specimen information.

In the medical world, the transportation of specimens and supplies is an ongoing requirement. Whether it is a sample that needs to be tested same-day, or the delivery of vital supplies, getting items from one place to another in a timely manner makes it possible to serve patients properly.

Rather than managing this need in-house, it’s wise to turn the job over to a professional courier service. Globally, courier services did more than $300 billion in business in 2019, and that number appears poised to grow. Let’s take a look at a few of the key benefits of outsourcing courier services.

A Courier Grows with You

At first, your transportation needs may be modest, and you might be able to handle the work in-house without much of a disruption. As your practice grows, however, those deliveries to the lab may become rather intrusive, and they could have a negative impact on other parts of your operation. With a professional courier on your side, it will be easy to adapt to growing demand. A courier with a large fleet will easily be able to handle the additional work and you and your staff can remain focused on serving patients.

Finding the Best Path

There is a science to transporting anything from one place to another in an efficient manner. Medical courier services use route planning software to make sure they aren’t wasting time – and money – by adding unnecessary miles to each journey.  This isn’t something you’ll be able to utilize if you handle deliveries in-house, but it will be put to use for your benefit when you contract with a lab courier.

Trust the Experts

Every field has its own experts who know how to handle the various challenges that are presented in that arena. Healthcare professionals are great at what they have been trained to do – but transportation logistics is not part of that training. Trusting an experienced courier service to manage the movement of samples and supplies will improve performance and minimize the hassles and headaches incurred along the way.

Never Satisfied

Developing an ongoing relationship with a medical courier service is beneficial because the courier can provide continually improving performance as time moves along. Patterns will develop in the way samples and supplies need to be delivered, and the courier can use that information to adjust. Those adjustments will not only provide financial savings but can also shorten turnaround times. The commitment to consistent improvement is one of many reasons that a courier service is sure to outperform an in-house alternative.

Remove a Management Task

Couriers are not often thought of as a vital component of the medical field. The services couriers provide are crucial in delivering time-sensitive laboratory specimens, pharmaceuticals, paperwork, and supplies to reference laboratories, hospitals, pharmacies, and other medical facilities. Courier services are no longer just a random car or van coming to pick up and deliver a specimen. These services have evolved and become more focused on training and technology over the past few years, with the goal of improving service levels. There are a few new and exciting trends developing within the courier industry that will create even more efficiency and effectiveness in 2020.

Medical Courier Management Software

Technology is the most significant change in the courier industry, as it is in most businesses. GPS tracking is one of the critical and evolving trends within the industry. Medical facilities can track, in real time, exactly where their specimens are and when they will arrive. GPS tracking allows the courier to take the most efficient route to the destination, improving delivery time and decreasing fuel costs. Utilizing these types of tools help reduce costs, eliminate missing specimens, track deliverability success, and provide peace of mind for laboratories, but more importantly, for patients. Courier management systems are an exciting and efficient way for labs to manage and maintain control of multiple functions pertaining to specimen delivery process, and the use of mobile devices in the fleet have created even more opportunities for leveraging courier technology.

Path-Tec’s SpectraLogix system allows for courier scheduling, specimen tracking, route optimization, communication features, mobile convenience, and report generation. This technology assists labs in improving overall client satisfaction, reducing costs associated with transporting specimens, and creating greater overall operating efficiency.

Medical Drone Technology

Drone technology is another area evolving within the courier industry. Although drones have not yet been widely used within the medical courier realm, they are becoming more common within the package and food delivery industry. It is uncertain if drones would be a viable delivery option for patient sensitive information, but there are certainly other practical areas in which they may be utilized. Some possibilities for drone technology within the health care field include delivery of medical supplies, food, or water to remote or storm ravaged areas, delivery of supplies to Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) out in the field, or taking an automated external defibrillator (AED) to a heart attack victim. In instances such as a virus breakout, drone could be utilized to retrieve patient specimens without having to risk additional personnel to the infected regions.

Increased Medical Courier Training

Training of medical couriers is more in depth than one might suspect. The individuals transporting specimens have HIPPA, specimen handling and integrity, exposure control, spill and leak protocol, compliance, and DOT training. Keeping couriers up to date on the latest processes and procedures improves services and efficiency for both the medical facilities, as well as the courier service. Lack of training on how to properly transport specimens can be extremely detrimental to the integrity of a specimen, and medical courier and logistics companies have added a new focus in this area of healthcare logistics.

RFID Temperature Tracking

Oftentimes, when a courier service transfers a specimen to a laboratory, keeping the temperature within the appropriate range for optimal testing may be a concern. This does not have to be the case any longer. There are now controls available that have the ability to track the temperature range of the specimen being transferred throughout the courier route, from the time it leaves the customer site to arrival at the lab in which it will be tested. An RFID tag is attached to the specimen, at which time, a temperature range may be programmed into the tag. Should the specimen go above or below the set range, the specimen will be flagged. This allows for technicians to determine immediately, upon arrival, the specimen integrity, reducing time that may be wasted by analyzing specimens that are no longer fit for testing. While this is often time used for specimens being shipped through carriers, it is also an added tool that couriers can use to increase specimen integrity and quality control. This same technology can be used to streamline inventory management using RFID lot labels on specimen collection kits and and marketing materials.

Liebe Freunde,

Steve Jobs hat im Jahr 1976 zusammen mit Steve Wozniak und Ronald Wayne die Firma Apple gegründet. Ronald Wayne, der in Vergessenheit geratene "dritte Gründer", verkaufte seinen Anteil in Höhe von 10% aber schon wenige Monate nach der Gründung für 800 US-Dollar. Sein Anteil wäre heute 15,6 Milliarden Euro wert - Wayne aber bereut nichts und sagt, dass er „die zu dieser Zeit bestmögliche Entscheidung getroffen" habe.

Nach dem überragenden Erfolgen mit dem Apple II verlor Jobs aber den internen Machtkampf gegen den ehemaligen Pepsi Manager John Sculley und musste 1985 Apple verlassen. Nach dem Weggang Jobs verlor Apple den PC-Machtkampf gegen Microsoft. Daraufhin geriet das Unternehmen in eine tiefe Krise; im Jahr 1996 stand Apple vor dem Ruin bzw. einer feindlichen Übernahme.

Steve Jobs hat im Jahr 1997 nach seiner Rückkehr zu Apple die Ursachen der Firmenkrise analysiert. Auf der Entwicklerkonferenz WWDC '97 spricht Jobs Klartext:

„I apologize. I feel your pain. Apple software came for several years from lousy management. I have to say it. And there were people that were going off in 18 different directions. Doing arguably interesting things in each one of them. Good engineers - lousy management. And what happened when your are looking at the farm that was created with all these different animals going in different directions. It doesn't add up. The total is less than the sum of the parts.

And so we had to decide what are the fundamental directions we are going in, and microcosmically they might have made sense, but macrocosmically they made no sense. When you think about focusing, you think: Focusing is saying Yes. No, focusing is about saying No. And the result of this focus is gonna be some really great products. The total is much greater than the sum of the parts."

Genau das ist der Schlüssel zum Erfolg: Fokussierung, sonst nichts. Wir haben bei Xavo diese Lehren auch ziehen müssen. Nachdem wir jahrelang auf vielen unterschiedlichen Baustellen unterwegs waren, haben auch wir den Weg der konsequenten Fokussierung eingeschlagen: mit den Themen Plant Scheduling, Product Development und Lab Logistics.

Herzliche Grüße und "Alles wird gut".