Major US Healthcare Provider revamps Field Service, Lab Specimen Tracking
Business Situation
The company, a major U.S. healthcare
service provider, handles administrative
and laboratory services for physicians’
offices and clinics, freeing
doctors to focus on providing medical
services. One function that the company
provides is to transport medical
specimens from doctors’ offices to
the company’s laboratory, transporting
2,000 to 3,000 specimens per day.
A key requirement is to be able to
know, with absolute certainty, the
whereabouts of every specimen—from
the time it is picked up at the doctor’s
office to the point where it is disposed
of, seven days after completing the
testing. Initially, the company tracked
specimens with AirClick barcode scanners,
but these devices had several
shortcomings: the software wasn’t
customizable; the scanners didn’t work
reliably; and the wireless network the
solution used had poor coverage in the
geographical area where the company
operated, which often made it impossible
to transmit the tracked data.
Business Solution
Looking for a better solution, the
healthcare service provider came
across Field Force Manager, a Verizon
Wireless software solution that works
with BlackBerry smartphones and
Microvision’s ROV Scanner with Bluetooth.
The company has been using
the new solution since the fall of 2008,
and they are thrilled with the results.
Field Force Manager offers all the
flexibility that the healthcare service
provider needs: in fact, they were able
to program it themselves to do exactly
what they wanted. They also liked the
solution’s built-in GPS capabilities, so
they could track drivers’ whereabouts
without drivers having to carry a separate
GPS device; and the electronic
forms capabilities, which eliminated
onerous paperwork requirements.
The solution is extremely easy to
learn and use. When the driver starts
his route in the morning, he enters his
starting mileage in Field Force Manager.
He also goes through an electronic
checklist to make sure all of
the necessary equipment is in his vehicle—
fire extinguisher, latex gloves,
flashlight and batteries, and so forth.
If anything is missing, the driver flags
it, which notifies the main office of
the need to replace it. In addition,
the driver notes any needed vehicle
maintenance, such as an oil change.
Upon arriving at the first clinic, the driver finds medical specimens ready for pickup. Each specimen bag has a barcoded label, created with Laboratory Information System (LIS) software that the healthcare service provider has installed on Windows desktops in the doctors’ offices. Opening Field Force Manager, the driver brings up the Clinic Pickup form by pressing a single button on his BlackBerry. He then scans the clinic barcode, scans each master label on the specimens, and presses Finish. At that point, the information is immediately transferred to the Verizon Wireless server running Field Force Manager, where it can be accessed by the healthcare service provider’s management, so they can determine the exact whereabouts of specimens and drivers at any time.
This process continues as the driver works his way through his route. At the end of the day, the driver enters his ending mileage into Field Force Manager and uses the Route Notes electronic form to note any problems encountered on the route. And that’s it—there’s no need to spend half an hour more doing manual paperwork to track starting and ending mileage, time, or specimens: the software handles all of these tasks automatically.
Upon arrival at the lab, specimens are scanned in. They are rescanned at each stage of the process until they are disposed of, providing a complete audit trail.
Benefits
- Ability to track specimens with absolute certainty: “With Field Force Manager and the ROV Scanners, we know exactly where every specimen is at all times,” says the Director of Transportation and Facilities. “In a business like ours, that’s huge.”
- No paperwork : “Our drivers hate paperwork—which is why they love Field Force Manager and the ROV Scanners,” says the Director.
- Greater productivity : Fort estimates that eliminating paperwork saves at least 30 minutes a day per driver—which, for the company’s 10 drivers, adds up to 5 hours saved a day. For the drivers, the time savings mean they can focus on driving and customer service; for the company, they translate into payroll savings, since the five hours were typically put in as overtime.
- Greater reliability : The ROV Scanners are extremely reliable—which was not the case with the scanners the company previously used. “In the past, we often had equipment failures, which meant we had to transport the specimens without being able to track their whereabouts,” said Fort. “Now we can live up to our promise to our customers—that we can track exactly where their specimens are, from the time we pick them up to the time they’re disposed of.
The company is also pleased with the high reliability of the BlackBerry platform. “The connectivity is totally reliable, and we have complete confidence that all data the drivers collect is being accurately transmitted to the Verizon Wireless server,” says the Director. - Savings on equipment costs: “Before, we had to keep buying replacement equipment due to failures,” said the Director. “We were spending at least $1,000 per year on replacing failed equipment. With the ROV Scanners, we haven’t had any problems at all.”
- Bluetooth convenience: The ROV Scanner’s ability to transmit data to the BlackBerry wirelessly, via Bluetooth technology, means that drivers can keep their BlackBerry in their pocket, so all they have to carry is the small, lightweight scanner.
- Ease of Use: “With Field Force Manager and the ROV Scanner, we can train a new driver in just a couple of hours,” says the Director.
learn more
- Download this barcode scanner case study in PDF format
- Learn more about the ROV Scanner
- Learn more about Verizon Wireless Field Force Manager