Overview

A last mile shipping and delivery provider came to us seeking a cost-effective solution in tracking Lab Specimens.  Their customer, the lab, had experience in tracking their specimens with a consumer Bluetooth product.  The devices lacked critical sensors and the range to be an impactful solution for their commercial application.

The courier officially approached OnAsset to support their healthcare client in implementing a temperature and location monitoring program for the lab specimens.

Challenge

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has guidelines for labs. These regulations describe optimal temperatures for specimens between 20 to 25 degrees Celsius, with humidity between 30 to 50 percent.[1] It is important to the lab that all specimens are stored in optimal environments throughout their journey from collection to testing for the most accurate results and best patient care.

The specimens the courier transports are moved in a small cooler between labs. The trip can take as few as 15 minutes to over an hour. The courier wanted a solution for monitoring the location and conditions within each cooler during the journey.

OnAsset Solution

The first step was a pilot program. The courier and OnAsset deployed a limited number of SENTRY gateways and Sentinel Loggers. These immediately proved effective at providing the data needed for lab technicians to monitor the temperature, humidity, and status of shipments at regularly scheduled intervals. The lab used that data to calculate dew point. While effective, this was a time-consuming process.

After a successful trial of the SENTRY and Sentinel suite of products, the courier team expanded the network placing Sentinel Loggers in each cooler to capture the environmental conditions of specimens in transit. Mobile SENTRY 600 gateway readers were installed in each courier vehicle. Fixed SENTRY 600 gateways were installed at each lab, creating a connected network of hundreds of devices constantly streaming critical sensor data.

Several months into the deployment, the lab team approached the courier about opportunities to save time by automating dew point measurements. OnAsset quickly customized a solution to meet this need. In a matter of months, the OnAsset team had added an algorithm to the OnAsset Insight platform to measure dew point, thereby eliminating the need for lab technicians to calculate and record manual calculations.

“The parent-child function of the SENTRY gateway reader plus several lower-cost, Bluetooth-enabled Sentinel devices has been a game changer. It helps us monitor hundreds of moving parts across a wide area. We know where our assets are at all times, and that the specimens we’re transporting are well-preserved, in optimum conditions for valid test results.” Director of Global Critical Deliveries

“OnAsset has paved the way for us to utilize the Sentinel in out of network shipments. The network of gateways they have deployed provides us the ability to capture critical temperature and location data without us having to deploy a more costly real time device!” Logistics Manager

Results

The parent-child configuration, where a wireless-enabled SENTRY reads data transmitted via Bluetooth from the Sentinel devices attached to coolers, helps the lab monitor specimens across a vast network of moving parts.

If temperature or dew point drops below a certain threshold, personnel are alerted and able to make necessary adjustments. While it wasn’t part of the initial objectives of the program, an added bonus has been having a clear line of sight on the whereabouts of the costly coolers used to transport specimens and maximizing equipment availability.

It is estimated that lab technicians are saving a few hours each day by automating shipments and documentation. Time once spent tracking shipments and calculating and recording dew point can now be used to best meet the needs of patients.

_{[1] QMS Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Template (fda.gov)}