for the clinical lab industry

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1 by Healthcare Packaging News New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry In the highly competitive clinical laboratory field, re-thinking the inbound supply chain model can yield dramatic results for both laboratory revenue and patient results. Delivered by

2 New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry In the highly competitive clinical laboratory field, a radical re-thinking of the inbound supply chain model can yield dramatic results for both profits and patients. FACT UPS delivers to more ZIP codes earlier than anyone else With the shift toward high-volume, centralized clinical laboratories, the profitability of today s laboratory hinges on its ability to receive specimens, rapidly route them to the specific BY 8:00AM BY 8:30AM 7,200+ ZIP CODES 13,920 ZIP CODES department for testing and return the results to the physician as quickly as possible. Yet for many labs, the inbound supply chain model practiced has not kept pace with the sophistication of the actual tests performed. Fortunately, new techniques exist for streamlining the inbound supply chain in some cases radically to weed out inefficiencies, speed up testing, and return results to physicians more rapidly. By partnering with the right logistics provider, labs can benefit from their technological capabilities including tools and information to expedite specimen ing both at the clinic, doctors office or hospital, as well as when it is delivered to the lab. Inbounding presents a bottleneck The workflow at the typical lab starts out with a traditional inbounding, whereby a package delivery service drops off the morning s delivery of specimens. It can take several hours to open each package in order to identify which test is required for each specimen. By the time those specimens are routed to the appropriate technician, testing may not begin until late morning or much later in the day. That means physicians may not receive the results until well into the afternoon, depending on the length of time required for a given test. For those physicians who perform hospital rounds in the afternoon, there is a very good chance they simply won t see the results until the following morning. A totally new approach to managing that inbounding can enable a modern, highvolume lab to completely rethink its workflow, New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry 2

3 accelerate testing, and get results to physicians the same morning the package arrives. The result: more satisfied physicians, faster patient diagnoses, and a more competitive service offering vis-à-vis other labs. Separating the physical flow from the information flow Consider how the entire workflow of a lab would change if they knew the day before what specimens were to arrive at the lab the next day. Today s time-consuming internal inbounding each morning could be replaced by a true resource planning that would occur the previous day. That would allow planners to map out the entire next day s testing load an entire day in advance which tests, which machines, which technicians, and how many. High demand for a particular test could easily be anticipated and accommodated, permitting the scheduling of the appropriate machines and technician resources to avoid delays. Tests could even be prioritized, allowing the lab (or even its physician customers) to designate which tests should be turned around immediately. This capability would permit labs to offer a new class of guaranteed early a.m. results services for its physician customers. Billing could even happen sooner, whether to the hospital, doctor s office, or patient s insurance company, speeding up the lab s cash flow. When one takes a step back and looks at the flow of specimens into a lab, there are really two flows 1) the physical flow of specimens, and 2) the digital flow of information about those specimens. Ideally, the information flow to the lab should happen the day before the actual A tale of two workflows Day One Day TWO Day THREE Traditional approach Doctor s office Package delivery service Lab: inbounding Lab: testing Doctor on afternoon rounds Doctor unavailable, on afternoon rounds Doctor reviews results Patient notified hours Patient specimen taken SMART PACKAGE Entered into web portal, transmitted to lab Doctor s office Lab: resource planning Pickup Package delivery service Inbounding Lab delivery Lab: testing Doctor reviews results Results to doctor s office Patient notified hours 6am 12pm 5pm 6am 12pm 5pm 6am 12pm 5pm A smart package enables an entirely different workflow for both the lab and physician s office, resulting in dramatically faster results turnaround. New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry 3

4 Optimizing the inbound supply chain When a lab first enters into a strategic partnership with UPS, its logistics experts will map that lab s existing inbound supply chain to identify areas for improvement. UPS brings its decadeslong experience of identifying inefficiencies to bear on a customer s inbound workflow. This can yield creative solutions such as creating separate delivery addresses for specific loading docks or suites within the lab s facilities, reducing if not eliminating the need for a lab to have a centralized internal sort. UPS can also offer specially designed master packs that allow bulk shipments of specimens, thus eliminating individual scans and sorts for each specimen, further increasing efficiencies for the lab. package arrives. That day-before insight into what s being shipped is what provides the lab unprecedented visibility to enable true resource planning to take place. However, this information flow is severely restricted if not outright prevented by the widespread use of traditional, preprinted labels for addressing specimens. While pre-printed labels may seem like a momentary convenience for the clinic, hospital or physician s office, they are actually at the root of today s inefficiency in the link between physician s office and lab. That s because they do not provide a way to transmit information about what s in that package, and certainly not in advance of the shipment. A package with a pre-printed label is not smart. Rethinking the physician s workflow If you were to design a workflow from the ground up to transmit information from the hospital, clinic or doctor s office to the lab about what test is to be sent that evening and delivered the next morning, you would want to identify the earliest point in the when that information is known. One approach would be to transmit the information to the lab as soon as the patient makes an appointment for a test. But as anyone who s ever visited a doctor s office knows, appointments can be fluid, rendering this an unreliable point in time. The next earliest opportunity is when the specimen is actually drawn from the patient. At that point, a nurse or physician s assistant can log into a special UPS secure website to prepare the shipment including specific information about the test to be performed and then print the shipping label. (A set of permissions and configuration options can be set up to offer a set of clearly defined choices of test types and other desired or required information, both for that doctor s office and the lab.) But more importantly, that information would be sent immediately to the lab, conveying the test to be performed. (This procedure can also be accomplished with a phone call to the lab. Staff at the lab can enter the information into the Web portal on their end, generate a PDF label, and send it to the doctor s office by .) So the two flows information and physical New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry 4

5 Enabling global growth specimen shipment are kicked off at the same time. Instead of a pre-printed label that doesn t provide any visibility to the lab, the lab now has the ability to track a smart package by receiving that information flow from the doctor s office, clinic or hospital in advance, permitting a true resource planning to take place at the lab. Increasingly labs are drawing Early morning delivery: business from other countries. Presorts and extracts UPS offers forwarding and While information flow can present a significant transformation brokerage services that can be of specific benefit to a lab, of a lab s business, there are other with nearly all UPS customs innovations that can be applied entries clearing the same to the physical flow to get those packages into the lab and to day. Whether a lab is receiving specimens from other the right area of the lab earlier than thought possible. countries, or transferring While UPS s standard delivery service reaches in excess of specimens to another country, UPS s single global IT platform 20,000 ZIP codes by 8:30 a.m. permits visibility of a lab s or before, there are ways to get specimen movements on a packages delivered even earlier. global scale. Through special techniques known as presorts and early morning extracts, labs can receive packages at their facilities as early as 6 a.m. And depending on the lab s location, even earlier receipt is possible; some labs are receiving packages as early as 2 a.m.! How is this possible? It starts with what is known as a presort. By special arrangement, packages destined for a specific lab can be identified upon arrival at UPS s centralized Worldport hub in Louisville, KY. Rather than routing them as single but separate packages on an outbound flight to the destination, those packages can be grouped together in large bags right at the central hub. Those bags are loaded onto the outbound flight in such a way that they are among the first cargo off the plane upon arrival. Normally packages go through a local sortation at the local UPS hub. However, presorted bags full of specimens destined for a lab can bypass that local sort, and instead can be loaded immediately onto a UPS vehicle for delivery to the lab. Alternatively, the lab can send its own driver to the UPS facility to pick up the bags as soon as they come off the plane. Conclusion Through a combination of day-before resource planning and early morning delivery techniques, it is possibly to shave off a significant amount of time from the typical and inefficient inbounding that most labs go through today. This can mean returning results to doctors the same morning the package arrives at the lab even for tests that require several hours. Not only does this result in faster service for the physician who orders the test, it can often permit treatment to begin an entire day earlier, thus improving patient outcomes. This technique is being used successfully today by clinical labs that have transformed their business planning, resulting in a decided competitive advantage. UPS has spent over 100 years fine-tuning the supply chains of its own system as well as that of its customers, and as a consequence has learned how to help clinical labs with specific solutions to drive out inefficiencies from their inbound supply chains. This permits a fundamental transformation New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry 5

6 of the lab business by enabling a true scheduled workflow, resulting in a faster revenue turn, competitive differentiation, a more satisfied physician customer, and better patient outcomes. More information: Russell Reams, UPS Healthcare Segment Marketing Manager 55 Glenlake Parkway, NE, Atlanta, GA Phone: rreams@ups.com Contingency planning services While UPS offers a host of time- and temperature-monitoring solutions, clinical labs high volume and short delivery windows require an extremely cost-effective way of mitigating potential problems during shipment. To address this need, UPS offers Proactive Response, a service that provides cost-effective 24/7 monitoring of packages. UPS couples this monitoring service with customer-specific operating procedures with intervention services to save at risk packages. For example, if a package reaches a destination where no one is available to accept it, UPS representatives will work with the customer to implement alternative actions. These actions may include a same day redelivery attempt, delivery to an alternate location, holding the package in cold storage for delivery on a different day, or returning the package to the sender. When necessary UPS Proactive Response can utilize UPS Express Critical, a service for same-day delivery of critical shipments. New techniques for streamlining the inbound supply chain for the clinical lab industry 6