The Logistics of Love
Feb. 14 is not recognized as a public holiday, but people everywhere with Valentine’s traditions feel an awareness — and perhaps an obligation — to do something this day for someone that involves matters of the heart.
Figuratively speaking, matters of the heart can be simply expressed using symbols like roses or Cupid. But, real-life emotional and physical challenges of the heart cannot be expressed so easily. Actions speak louder than words, and during the global COVID-19 pandemic, many people with heart conditions have been flirting with danger.
People who have been experiencing symptoms of heart disease like chest pains or shortness of breath have stayed away from hospitals and doctors fearing they would get the novel coronavirus. Others might have worried that seeking medical care would contribute more to an already overwhelmed healthcare system.
According to a report by the CDC, visits to hospital emergency departments declined by 23 percent from March 15 and May 23 for heart attacks and 20 percent for strokes compared with the previous 10 weeks. If critical care treatment is simply not available, preventative treatments like diagnostics and testing for these potentially life-threatening conditions is even more critical than before.
Checking the pulse of lab logistics
When CDC tallies cause-of-death statistics data for 2020, heart disease will remain the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer and COVID-19. This may have been lost in the daily cadence of state and federal reporting of COVID-19 positive tests, deaths and percent of hospital beds full.
What COVID-19 has done is magnified the role of laboratory logistics for medical clinics and hospitals to more rapidly test blood and tissue samples to diagnose and treat patients with life-threatening conditions.
During the past year, a growing number of medical labs — whether they operate their own fleets or use couriers — have been able to increase the security and efficiency of pickups of medical specimens, helping them cope with this unprecedented demand.
Technology can now provide lab logistics with real-time visibility of when samples are ready and available to be picked up from collection boxes at clinics and hospitals. With this visibility, labs are able to eliminate unnecessary stops on routes and conduct product transfers in a contactless manner.
Atlanta-based BoxLock has a growing number of clients in the medical logistics industry that use its secure and rugged smart locks with integrated barcode scanners. As soon as a clinic or hospital worker scans and places a sample inside a collection box for pickup, the smart locks send the transaction data to a robust, web-based BoxLock Control suite with access control, audit log and inventory management tools.
The cloud-based platform can integrate with route management software through APIs to dynamically add the stop to a driver’s assigned route. Upon arriving at a location containing a sample, the driver opens the lockbox with the QR code and scans the specimens. This notifies the authorized recipient that the transaction has been completed and provides the necessary time stamps to authenticate the exchange of the goods.
During the past year, many hospitals, clinics and their lab logistics providers have improved their technology capabilities to get patients the help they need. These improvements have addressed critical health issues so that people can attend to other matters of the heart.
To learn more about how BoxLock’s software and hardware solutions for lab logistics, visit: www.getboxlock.com