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success story

Robust, Scalable End-to-End Automated Solutions for a Fortune 500 Medical Technologies Firm

Virtusa was the strategic implementation partner for a Fortune 500 medical technologies firm, we have implemented an auto-scalable, completely automated solution for tracking specimens across a complex supply chain.

 

 

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The challenge

A manual process for tracking specimens dispatched from the operating room to the laboratory, from manual surgical through pathology

The client is a Fortune 500 medical technologies firm whose products include implants used in joint replacement and trauma surgeries, surgical equipment and surgical navigation systems.

Virtusa developed a mHealth application to help HCPs digitally track specimens dispatched from the operating room to the laboratory using an innovative microservices architecture.

During surgery, a doctor may require examining certain specimens of a patient and obtain test results from Pathology to perform a more accurate diagnosis of a patient. The existing process tracked specimens dispatched from the operating room to the laboratory, from a manual surgical to pathology. However, there were certain inefficiencies in the surgical-pathology examination workflow:

  • Involved manual activities of labeling test orders for specimens
  • The OR staff had no insight into the status of specimens, once dispatched from OR
  • Specimens could be transported through multiple routes and logistic partners across a complex network of operating rooms, specimen processing rooms and Pathology Labs (PL) and faced the high possibility of getting misplaced during transit from the OR to the PL
  • There was no established reconciliation process to track all specimens extracted from a patient
  • OR faced occasional disturbances with the WiFi connectivity due to certain restrictions inside
  • Pathology test results and their status had to be tracked back from PL to the OR
  • The incumbent system necessitated frequent communication between OR staff and PL, over the intercom, to find out the status of the specimen
  • The incumbent application was not intuitive and user-friendly
  • The new application was required to have minimum user interactions, automatically navigating the user to the next steps in the workflow

The solution

Assembling cloud-hosted MVPs, powered by microservices to transformation the specimen tracking process

Virtusa, within a short period of 4 months, developed the specimen tracking application as a proof concept. Powered by cloud-hosted micro-services, driven by intuitive UX, the solution addressed challenges faced in existing Surgical Pathology process by:

  • Automating the process of labeling test orders for specimens using QR code scans and tagging the test order from the application
  • Providing a graphical view to track the status of the specimens in real time
  • Reducing the chances of misplacing specimens by managing the specimen status
  • Designing the OR mobile application to hold data locally and sync with the back-end periodically. This ensured that the app worked, even in the offline mode.
  • Designing the middleware micro-services to be auto-scalable using the Azure cloud platform which enabled future growth at reduced overheads.
  • Adding validations to ensure accuracy of specimen information
  • The mobile layer components and middleware layers followed a modular design, allowing reuse.
  • Including wizard features to automatically navigate the user to the next step in the process wherever applicable
  • Providing a summary view for a reconciliation of specimens scanned and dispatched from the operating room
The Solution

The benefit

Visual tracking at the specimen-level

As an innovation partner, Virtusa delivered the following:

  • The solution ensured that all specimens sent from the OR were received at the appropriate PL
  • A visual workflow representation of the status of each specimen
  • Complete tracking of the specimens that are expected from a PL
  • The resulting efficiencies enabled the client to focus on their most strategic product needs
  • Taking necessary action if the process needs to be expedited when there is a delay
  • Having a track of all individuals involved in the process

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