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.
The Challenge
A manual process for tracking specimens dispatched from the operating room to the laboratory, from manual surgical through pathologyThe 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 processVirtusa, 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 Benefit
Visual tracking at the specimen-levelAs 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