Why Outreach Labs Should Track Medical Supply Deliveries

Medical couriers’ pickup and deliver more than just lab outreach specimens. As many labs and hospitals know, medical couriers are often responsible for delivering any number of items including mail, bank bags, pharmaceuticals, supplies, and medical equipment to name a few.

Next to tracking specimens and courier locations, we are frequently asked if Medical Courier Elite (MCE) can track lab supply deliveries. The answer is yes, and we created a feature called “Supply Tracking” to help labs with base level tracking of non-specimen supplies, essentially, verifying pick-up and delivery of supplies. By tracking these packages electronically MCE is also capable of printing reports and discovering trends in customer usage of supplies.

The Importance of Tracking Supplies

Equally as important to follow and reconcile as specimens, supply tracking ensures your medical supplies, documents, and equipment are picked-up and delivered to the right locations. If supplies are flying in and out of your lab with no accountability, you could be losing money. You may be buying more than you need, providing customers with excessive supplies, losing deliveries, or dealing with other inefficiencies.

By tracking supplies that are picked up and delivered by couriers, you see exactly where your supplies are going so that you can identify potential losses and protect your bottom line.

4 Critical Areas of Supply Tracking:

Safeguard Profits

When your clients use more supplies than they return with their tests, it could be an indicator that some of your supplies are being used on tests going to other labs. By tracking the supplies, you send to clients, you can compare the specimens you receive against the amount of supplies you send out, and if desired, you can adjust customer charges as needed to cover these costs.

Get to Know Your Customers Better

With base-level tracking of non-specimen supplies, you can collect data on customer usage levels, which allows you to identify trends and gain a better understanding of your customers. When you know your customers, you can serve them more effectively. 

Create Accountability 

Couriers sometimes get confused about which deliveries go to which customer location. A proper supply tracking system like MCE ensures the correct package gets delivered to the correct location. By tracking deliveries, you create accountability for deliveries which minimizes lost orders, and improves customer satisfaction. 

Collect Analytics to Improve Decision Making

Supply tracking collects data that can help you analyze costs and usage. You can leverage that information to make decisions about the types of supplies you use in your laboratory. 

How does MCE Track Supplies?

Much like tracking individual specimens, MCE tracks supplies using barcodes. Although labs can purchase adhesive barcode labels to place on deliverables, MCE can read any type of barcode a package might already have on it. So, weather it is a FedEx package, a box with a pre-printed barcode on it, or a barcode created in-house, MCE and the Honeywell CT40 mobile computer can scan most any code at pick-up and/or delivery to track its destination.

After deciding the barcode system, you want to use for your delivery items, you can then decide how you want to track supplies within MCE. Some labs like a simpler method of tracking deliveries within the note section of a site visit. However, this method does not allow the same detail of reporting as the Supply Tracking module of MCE offers. If you want detailed reporting and tracking of supplies, then utilizing the Supply Tracking module is your best option.

Learn More About Supply Tracking in MCE

 Want to learn more about Supply Tracking in MCE? Visit www.medicalcourier.com/features/supply-tracking/ . If you are interested in a web demo of our Supply Tracking module and how it can benefit your lab or hospitals medical courier services, complete our online form and a representative will contact you.