Lab leaders who adopt best practices in courier services will help ensure their lab’s supply chains remain secure
Hospital and health systems using courier services to transport patients’ biological specimens from doctors’ offices and other locations to clinical laboratories for testing and reporting are finding those services delayed or disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Limited office hours, closed physician practices, and the need for drivers to take time for symptom checking on healthcare campuses are among the growing challenges faced by couriers transporting medical laboratory specimens during this pandemic, experts told Dark Daily.
All these developments require courier operations and logistics companies to think outside the box for solutions that address the unique challenges triggered by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that have disrupted the normal operations of physicians’ offices, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. For example, many clinical labs struggle to obtain enough specimen collection and specimen transport supplies to sustain both their nascent COVID-19 testing programs and their routine testing operations.
One national logistics company recognized that it could help labs with the disruption in the supply chain for laboratory supplies caused by the coronavirus outbreak. In the early weeks of the pandemic, West Haven, Conn.-based Lab Logistics and its sister company Path-Tec, took the initiative to develop collaborations and strategic partnerships with several established manufacturers of medical laboratory supplies. Now it could not only be a source of much-needed supplies for its clients, but its network of couriers could supply the increase in services for all the locations where such supplies were needed.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus outbreak caused widespread disruption to the daily activities of hospitals, health systems, physician’s offices, and other providers. According to Susan Uihlein, Senior Vice President Business Development-Hospital Couriers at Lab Logistics—a company that creates, implements, and manages courier models customized to medical laboratory, hospitals, and health systems—in response to the pandemic, there was an immediate need by one of the largest multi-regional Health Systems in New York to align courier and logistics services to meet the new realities of how its facilities would respond to patient needs. It was also necessary that logistics solutions be complementary with the health systems’ COVID-19 policies.
“This health system requested that Lab Logistics’ drivers access the hospital’s personnel tracking application upon arrival,” explained Uihlein. “The health system’s new COVID-19 policy required everyone wishing to enter the health system campus to complete a coronavirus screening process—including having a temperature reading taken—and then receive a status confirmation on a smartphone screen. This obviously impacted the couriers’ progress on their routes.”
“We have 2,600 medical-specific couriers throughout the United States, and although all couriers undergo extensive orientation regarding known infectious transport, this current situation has spotlighted how important (COVID-19) is to our clients,” Brian McArdle, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lab Logistics, told Dark Daily.
“The couriers represent us and our clients,” he continued. “They are out in the field, they are picking up, delivering, and rolling with the punches as far as what a healthcare system or a clinical laboratory needs from them—from photo IDs to wearing masks and gloves. The process keeps evolving. And we have evolved with it.”
“Our operations team makes sure that we work with each client to flexibly react to changes in that day’s pickups and deliveries, as appropriate. There has been much optimization and on-the-fly changes,” said Uihlein.
In fact, the coronavirus pandemic resulted in a 26% increase in requests for specimen delivery, PPE, and COVID-19 related supply chain movement, according to data on the California, Louisiana, and New York City healthcare markets provided by Lab Logistics.
“Every day there have been changes to what is open and closed. We had to manage that through our proprietary healthcare dispatch system and with the couriers,” Susan Uihlein (above), Senior Vice President Business Development-Hospital Couriers at Lab Logistics, told Dark Daily. Lab Logistics transports medical specimens, supplies, and pharma for more than 350 US hospitals, healthcare systems, and clinical laboratories. (Photo copyright: LinkedIn.)
Clinical Laboratories Should Review Specimen Transport Procedures
Clearly, the COVID-19 pandemic is putting unique stresses on the logistics and transportation services operated by hospital systems, medical labs and anatomic pathology groups. That why it would be timely and appropriate for lab leaders to review/update best practices and necessary requirements that ensure efficient management of clinical laboratory specimens.
Topics covered in this highly-informative white paper include:
Handling and tracking laboratory specimen samples;
Confirming medical security, chain of custody, and transit tracking;
Coordinating test kits, supplies, reagents, lab equipment, and instruments;
Approaching a medical courier service conversion.
“By utilizing a logistics system that includes a dedicated courier, medical laboratories and healthcare systems can manage all aspects of transportation specimen transport, including handling and tracking of specimens, medical security, chain of custody, tracking supply inventory, and delivery. Successfully executed, all of these functions can generate financial improvements,” notes the white paper.
Tracking Specimen Arrival and Predicting Which Tests Will Be Needed
One technology that lab and healthcare system leaders can use to control costs and staffing involves online real-time tracking of drivers to enhance test turnaround time and determine when tests will be performed.
Lab Logistics’ version of this technology uses barcode scanning, GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking, and an online portal that enables its clients to view the routes and stops a driver has made for the lab. Lab leaders can determine how many specimens are expected, and what type of tests will be required, before the specimens arrive.
“They can see the volume coming in and they can staff-up based on the information we are giving them and not over-staff. It’s really good information,” Uihlein said.
Lab Logistics’ platform also integrates with a hospital’s laboratory information system (LIS) through the lab’s barcode. “The integration makes it possible for labs to get faster information from the field into their systems and create accessioning,” Uihlein explained.
Specimen Management Improved through Route Tracking
“We found that some drivers were doing daily pickups and we were not getting any specimens. Some clients were on vacation, stopped using the laboratory altogether, or weren’t doing that type of laboratory work anymore,” Napolitano told the white paper researchers.
Driver tracking also enabled Ochsner Health System in Louisiana to avoid “hot shots”—one-time delivery pickups which could be 90 miles away from the lab, explained Lloyd Gravois, Assistant Vice President of Logistics-Supply Chain, in the white paper.
Medical laboratory leaders who wish to enhance their lab’s specimen management and solve logistics issues during and after the COVID-19 pandemic are encouraged to download a copy of the Free Special Edition white paper by clicking here, or by placing this URL in their web browsers: https://www.darkdaily.com/free-special-edition-white-paper-specimen-management-and-logistics-issues-to-evaluate-for-continuous-quality-improvement-3-high-risk-medical-courier-support-services/.
How medical laboratories can show value through process improvement methods and analytics will be among many key topics presented at the upcoming Lab Quality Confab conference
Quality management is the clinical laboratory’s best strategy for surviving and thriving in this era of shrinking lab budgets, PAMA price cuts, and value-based payment. In fact, the actions laboratories take in the next few months will set the course for their path to clinical success and financial sustainability in 2020 and beyond.
But how do medical laboratory managers and pathologists address these challenges while demonstrating their lab’s value? One way is through process improvement methods and another is through the use of analytics.
Clinical pathologists, hospital lab leaders, and independent lab executives have told Dark Daily that the trends demanding their focus include:
Ensuring needed resources and appropriate tests,
while the lab is scrutinized by insurance companies and internally by hospital
administration;
“Our impact on patient care, in many cases, is very
indirect. So, it is difficult to point to outcomes that occur. We know things
we do matter and change patient care, but objectively showing that is a real
struggle. And we are being asked to do more than we ever had before, and those
are the two big things that keep me up at night these days,” he added.
This is where process improvement methods and analytics are
helping clinical laboratories understand critical issues and find opportunities
for positive change.
“You need to have a strategy that you can adapt to a changing landscape in healthcare. You have to use analytics to guide your progress and measure your success,” Patricia Nortmann, System Director of Laboratory Services at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, Erlanger, Ky., told Dark Daily.
Clinical Laboratories Can Collaborate Instead of Compete
Prior to a joint venture with TriHealth in Cincinnati, St. Elizabeth lab leaders used data to inform their decision-making. Over about 12 years preceding the consolidation of labs they:
Implemented front-end automation outside the core area and in the microbiology lab.
“We are now considered a regional reference lab in the state
of Kentucky for two healthcare organizations—St. Elizabeth and TriHealth,”
Nortmann said.
Thanks to these changes, the lab more than doubled its
workload, growing from 2.1 million to 4.3 million outreach tests in the core
laboratory, she added.
Christopher Doern, PhD (left), Director of Microbiology and Associate Professor of Pathology at Virginia Commonwealth University Health System; Patricia Nortmann (center), System Director of Laboratory Services at St. Elizabeth Healthcare; and Joseph Cugini (right), Manager Client Solutions at Health Network Laboratories, will present practical solutions and case studies in quality improvement and analytics for clinical laboratory professionals at the 13th Annual Lab Quality Confab, October 15-16, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Ga. (Photo copyright: The Dark Report.)
Using Analytics to Test the Tests
Clinical laboratories also are using analytics and information technology (IT) to improve test utilization.
At VCH Health, Doern said an analytics solution interfaces
with their LIS, providing insights into test orders and informing decisions
about workflow. “I use this analytics system in different ways to answer
different questions, such as:
How are clinicians using our tests?
When do things come to the lab?
When should we be working on them?
“This is important for microbiology, which is a very delayed
discipline because of the incubation and growth required for the tests we do,”
he said.
Using analytics, the lab solved an issue with Clostridium
difficile (C diff) testing turnaround-time (TAT) after associating it with
specimen transportation.
Inappropriate or duplicate testing also
can be revealed through analytics. A physician may reconsider a test after discovering
another doctor recently ordered the same test. And the technology can guide
doctors in choosing tests in areas where the related diseases are obscure, such
as serology.
Avoiding Duplicate Records While
Improving Payment
Another example of process
improvement is Health Network Laboratories (HNL) in Allentown, Pa. A team there established an enterprise master patient index (EMPI) and implemented digital tools to find and eliminate
duplicate patient information and improve lab financial indicators.
“The system uses trusted sources of data to make sure data is clean and the lab has what it needs to send out a proper bill. That is necessary on the reimbursement side—from private insurance companies especially—to prevent denials,” Joseph Cugini, HNL’s Manager Client Solutions, told Dark Daily.
HNL reduced duplicate records in its database from 23% to
under one percent. “When you are talking about several million records, that is
quite a significant improvement,” he said.
Processes have improved not only on the billing side, but in
HNL’s patient service centers as well, he added. Staff there easily find
patients’ electronic test orders, and the flow of consumers through their
visits is enhanced.
Learn More at Lab Quality Confab Conference
Cugini, Doern, and Nortmann will speak on these topics and more during the 13th Annual Lab Quality Confab (LQC), October 15-16, 2019, at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Ga. They will offer insights, practical knowledge, and case studies involving Lean, Six Sigma, and other process improvement methods during this important 2-day conference, a Dark Dailynews release notes.
Register for LQC, which is produced by Dark Daily’s sister publication The Dark Report, online at https://www.labqualityconfab.com/register, or by calling 512-264-7103.
Industrial engineering firm issues “Consumer Report”-type assessment of mid-volume, automated IA and ID analyzer systems
It’s not often that pathologists and clinical laboratory managers can access a Consumer Reports-type of comparison of laboratory analyzers as they prepare to purchase new diagnostic systems. In the case of mid-volume analyzers for immunoassy (IA) and infectious disease (ID) testing, such a report is now available—and it is immediately available on the Web.
Some quality experts are recognizing that the true root causes of non-conforming events in clinical laboratories and pathology groups are not flaws in individual work processes. Rather, they argue the true root causes of defects are actually embedded organizational values and beliefs which management uses to justify and reinforce the way it organizes and operates the laboratory.
Upcoming Lab Quality Confab features “world class” cost-cutting methods and experts
Belt-tightening by clinical labs and pathology groups continues as the current economic recession approaches the end of its second full year. To generate additional cash, a significant number of labs report aggressive belt-tightening on the operations side of the business.
This is particularly true of hospital and health system labs. Many have been asked by their administration to reduce spending below budgeted levels in order to allow the parent hospital to accumulate cash. Since baseline budgets for most hospital labs are already established at parsimonious levels, this compounds the difficulty of cutting costs to free up cash for the parent hospital. (more…)
