Electronic Chain of Custody Forms: How Much Can You Save?
Wishful Thinking
At some point in our lives, we all do it. We drive past a lottery billboard in one state or the other, turn to the people in the car, and talk “what-would-you-do”.
“I’d buy one of those really expensive hairless rat-dogs.”
“I’d pretend I was a contestant on Supermarket Sweep and fill up my cart with hams.”
“I’d pay off all of my loans and then buy each of my siblings a house far, far, far away from me.”
“I’d solve world hunger and eradicate Elephantitis.” (Showoff)
The thought of an unexpected windfall is exciting! From finding spare change under couch cushions; discovering a few bucks in the Winter coat that’s hung in the back of the closet all Spring, Summer, and Fall; and buying up a secondhand purse at Goodwill only to find a $10 bill in the lining -- there’s just nothing like it.
Brooding in the Board Room
In the business world, and specifically in the environmental laboratory industry, folks are concerned about the bottom line. The President sits in meetings with the I’m-not-sure-what-they-do Senior Executive Vice President, Executive Vice President, Senior Vice President, Corporate Vice President, Vice President, Assistant Vice President, a sprinkling of officers, and maybe a few laboratory directors to determine what action needs to be taken in order to land that windfall for the company, and they, too, talk “what-would-you-do.”
“We could expand our volatiles department.”
“Ooooh, I’d buy a new gas chromatograph with a headspace sampler.”
“I’d buy our entire field services department Trimble Yumas with Windows 8 for field data collection!”
But securing a windfall isn’t that easy in this economy. Laboratories are forced to drop their prices in order to compete on fixed-priced contracts. Analyses like VOCs, which used to run $80-$100 several years ago, are quoted at $60-70 each. Profit margins are getting slimmer and slimmer. So the folks in the conference room have to figure out another way, which often involves cutting costs. Cost cutting may mean no bonuses, layoffs, perhaps no more coffee provided in the break room (it sucked anyway). One way, however, that isn’t considered very often is how to correct the inefficiencies in day to day laboratory operations.
Manual Data Entry of CoCs is Inefficient and Costs Real Money
Let’s say that your lab receives an average of 100 coolers a day from FedEx. Each of these coolers contains a paper chain of custody (considered one sample delivery group) that has to be manually logged in by cooler receipt / log-in staff. Most of the chain of custody forms are hand-written, 25% of them are incomplete or have errors, and 15% are nearly illegible in places. Because of this, it takes both log-in staff and project management extra time to resolve issues – issues that could have been prevented.
In our research, we’ve determined that the average cost to the laboratory per hand-written chain of custody form is about $5, so about $500 per day in the scenario above.
A Simple Solution
With ezCoC, chain of custody forms are entered on a mobile device or desktop computer and transmitted electronically (and ahead of the samples – yay proper resource planning!) to the laboratory via pdf and flat files, which can be imported directly into the laboratory LIMS. No more transcription errors, no more incomplete forms, no more wet and soppy mess. Coolers are identified by a code attached to the electronic chain of custody form, and special ezCoC stickers (like custody seals) are placed on the outside of the coolers. The cost for an ezCoC chain of custody is $2. So, in this case, $200 per day. A difference of $300, or 60%! Assuming laboratories request that their clients use ezCoC and receive coolers 300 days out of the year, we’re talking approximately $90,000 a year in savings. Windfall? Sure feels like it.
Interested in trying ezCoC out in your laboratory? Download the “How to Get Started Guide”. Want to learn more, or do you have questions? Register for a free, 30-minute webinar.