Lab Logistics can press an easy button to optimize route planning

In today’s COVID-19 environment with medical supply chains stretched thin, a growing number of lab testing companies are pressing an easy button to optimize pickup and delivery routes.

Traditional route planning methods for medical samples have aimed to reduce variability by drivers stopping at every clinic on a regular daily schedule. In some cases, this required drivers to stop at the same locations multiple times a day.

Not knowing whether or not locations actually have samples ready to be picked up results in wasted time, fuel and labor costs as well as unnecessary wear-and-tear on vehicles. These costs multiply for labs with hundreds or even thousands of clinics, hospitals, and physician practices nationwide or regionally.

Labs that operate their own fleets or use couriers now have a way to gain real-time visibility of the status of individual collection boxes at stops. With this visibility, companies are making timely pickups of medical specimens and eliminate unnecessary stops.

InterPath Laboratory, Inc. provides diagnostic services to clinics, hospitals and physician practices in five states across the mountain ranges and the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The company operates a fully integrated logistics network using its own drivers and delivery fleet.

In Fall 2020, InterPath pressed the easy button with BoxLock. The rollout started by putting BoxLock units at 25 InterPath lab locations in dense urban areas where drivers face peak-hour parking and traffic flow problems.

InterPath integrated BoxLock’s access control and logging solution into its route management software. The BoxLock platform dynamically adds stops to the driver’s route once a sample is placed in the pickup container outside their collection facility.

The visibility this solution provides gives dispatchers and drivers advance notice before they start their routes. They now know ahead of time which clinic locations require a pickup, and which do not. Drivers can avoid the locations without any specimens, thus shortening their routes and saving InterPath time and money.

With real-time data now available when specimens are being deposited, InterPath is able to automatically optimize its routing schedules as well as leverage predictive analytics to increase route efficiencies going forward.

In the program’s first few months, InterPath is projecting to save 30% in route costs.

The BoxLock solution also gives each driver and clinic facility a unique QR code to facilitate tracking, date and time stamping. Upon arriving at a location containing a specimen, the driver opens the lockbox with the QR code and scans the specimens.

The driver’s action is instantly logged into the InterPath system, via BoxLock. This creates an immutable record of the transaction for auditing purposes and expedites the speed and quality of response times should a sample or specimen be lost, mislaid or not picked up.

Additionally, InterPath uses the BoxLock Control management portal to provide real-time reporting and logging data, and immediate pick-up and delivery alerts and notifications.

Learn more about BoxLock’s Lab Logistics software and hardware solutions by visiting: https://www.getboxlock.com/healthcare