MCE’s New Streamlining Function Increases Flexibility in Medical Specimen Tracking

As you should know by now, MCE’s cloud-based specimen tracking and courier management solution was created specifically to meet the needs of medical laboratories and couriers. When we built MCE, we didn’t just take an off-the-shelf logistics tool and make a few tweaks for medical courier use; instead, MCE was created from the ground up as a purpose-built solution with direct input and feedback from real-world users. The entire development process was guided by feedback from laboratory directors and courier managers to create a solution that would streamline courier routing and ensure the traceability of specimens from pickup to delivery.

Today, MCE has proven its value to medical laboratories nationwide, helping labs work smarter and more efficiently. The ability to track a missing specimen, particularly a critical sample that cannot be replaced, already offers ample justification for implementing MCE. However, our goal is to continually refine MCE to give users a more robust, more flexible, and more effective solution that increases efficiency and virtually eliminates all of the problems associated with lost or misplaced specimens.

With more and more labs and couriers relying on MCE every day, we’re gathering a lot of ideas for ways we can make MCE even better. Recently, in response to customer feedback, we added a new option to the way specimens are transferred between locations or between couriers. We call this option Streamlining because it gives users more flexibility in the way specimens and locations are handled.

Originally the Lab Scan feature in MCE was designed to designate a specimen’s final drop off at the lab for processing. However, lab visits sometimes serve as both a drop-off and pick-up location, and many customers let us know that the Lab Scan function was sometimes confusing to couriers. To address this, our development team created the new Streamlining function, which replaces the Lab Scan function and gives managers the flexibility to designate any location as a pick-up, drop-off, or both.

In addition to adding flexibility to the way locations are designated, the new Streamlining function allows for a location to be marked as a “transfer” location. The Streamlining function allows couriers to transfer specimens between each other directly through their Zebra TC56/57 devices. Transferring specimens between couriers is easy: Courier A simply scans the specimens being transferred to Courier B. Courier A’s Zebra device will display a barcode, which can be scanned by Courier B’s Zebra device to accept the transferred specimens. By integrating transfer tracking, Streamlining makes MCE a more robust tool for accurately tracking a specimen through each step of the journey to its final destination.

MCE prides itself in providing continual system enhancements based on the real needs of its customers. Improvements like Streamlining create a better experience for lab administrators and couriers, and you can count on us to continue listening to your suggestions and soliciting your feedback as we make enhancements that increase the effectiveness and the performance of your lab and couriers.

Contact MCE at 877-331-7427 or contact@medicalcourier.com to learn more about how the new Streamlining function adds flexibility over specimen routing, and to get additional information about the ways MCE improves specimen tracking and courier management.