Speed, customer satisfaction and reliability are important factors to consider when running a medical facility. The most important factor of all is safety. When you’re handling lab specimens, you need them delivered by a reliable source. Here are just a few reasons why you need a trusted delivery company to provide these services.
Your Employees Need to Be Safe
Most people send samples to medical labs to check for diseases, so lab specimens are marked as biohazards that are dangerous when handled improperly. At a medical facility, employees are trained not to ingest or touch fluids from other people’s bodies. But the risks of doing so increase when the delivery of a dangerous specimen is unsafe.
An unsafe delivery includes packages that are broken or not properly sealed. Employees should not touch containers that have spilled or try to clean the spills themselves. They should not risk their health every time they receive a new delivery.
Your Reputation Relies On It
Every medical facility must be compliant with local, state and federal healthcare laws. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has rules and regulations for the proper handling of medical lab specimens. Any facility that is non-compliant with its rules is subject to costly fines and other penalties. In addition, your business’s reputation suffers when your facility refuses to follow safety standards.
Customer Satisfaction Depends On It
The rates of customer satisfaction depend on the efficiency of lab deliveries. Any lab specimen delivery that has been opened or damaged along the way is contaminated and unusable. Delivering a blood specimen is not the same as delivering clothing or shoes. For many specimens, any exposure to oxygen will contaminate the sample and ruin its lab results.
When a sample becomes unusable, the customer has to pay twice to send out another one. Regular contamination means more money, time and resources wasted. You lose customers when they decide to go to another medical facility instead of putting in a second order. Make sure that your deliveries are safe to maintain your current and future lists of customers.
It’s common for a lab sample to make several stops before reaching its final destination. Along the way, any problem can happen that contaminates it and ruins the test results. The delivery driver may break the seal by accident. The lab technician may fail to close the package correctly. To reduce the risks of delivery, choose a reliable logistics company to work with.