In the healthcare community and industry, timing is crucial for day-to-day operations and successful patient care. Without proper preparation and time budgeting, patient’s lives are in danger, and the efficiency of the industry is at risk. The importance of time not only goes into patient transport and care but also in blood and organ transport. Medi-Ops prides itself on fast and efficient transportation in any scenario – whether that be patients or medical product. Taking a look at each aspect of timing and its importance, we can begin to see that time may be the most vital aspect of the healthcare industry.
Timing In Blood Transport
Blood has a strict shelf and requirements for transportation in order to maintain the integrity of the product for medical use. Temperature-controlled transportation is essential in blood transport as blood and plasma have different temperature requirements. While blood can have a shelf life of up to 35 days if stored well, products should never have a transportation time of over 24 hours.
Transportation requirements go further than just timing in blood transport, however, the time aspect, along with the container requirements, go hand in hand to bring the best transportation situation for patients, clinical trials, and other medical needs. A note with blood transportation is also that while the blood product itself has the capability of being in transport for a few hours, sometimes the patient requiring the blood doesn’t have that kind of time. In these cases, emergent transportation is a necessity and the importance of timing increases greatly.
Timing In Organ Transport
Similar to blood and its timing and transportation requirements, organ transportation has its fair share of rules and regulations to ensure proper maintenance and transport of all products. From organ removal to transplant, the process is complex and time-sensitive. Temperature and containers are still a huge aspect of this process. The timing of transporting organs between facilities can’t be overlooked. Depending on the organ, different timing constraints are in place. For example, kidneys can maintain integrity up to 24 hours, while organs like the heart and lungs only have 3-6 hours of viability.
With the high demand of organ donors and recipients waiting for organs to become available for transplant, ensuring organs don’t go to waste on account of a timing mistake is of utmost importance! These are patients’ lives on the line and not a process or situation that can be taken lightly.
Not to mention, other medical products such as vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and other products have their own sets of time and transportation requirements.
Timing With Patient Transport
Patient transportation – whether in the form of emergency or non-emergency transportation, relies on schedules and timing to cater to patient needs. Emergency transportation obviously has a huge emphasis on timing as getting patients from the place of emergency to a medical care facility when in distress is vital. This is definitely a moving-as-fast-as-possible situation while maintaining the safety of the patient.
Emergent situations require the utilization and coordination of different services to cater to the specific situation and patient needs. Ambulatory transport, as well as air medical services, are considered and booked in these cases depending on the patient. Emergencies, unfortunately, come up quickly and unexpectedly, creating a great need for impeccable logistics and transport services that are on the ready to help any patient that should need it.
Even in NEMT cases, patients need to get to medical appointments and facilities on time, creating an emphasis on communication and coordination in the transportation industry so that patients utilizing these services have the best experiences possible.
Medi-Ops and Timing
A wealth of services are vital in order to be able to cater to any situation that should arise. That’s why Medi-Ops offers patient transport in forms of both ground (lights and sirens, STAT, scheduled, and four transport) and air (next flight out, onboard courier, and aircraft charter) transport as well as emergent and NEMT transportation (stretchers, wheelchairs, or rideshares). In addition, ground and air courier transportation services are available to approach medical product transport needs from any angle necessary. When lives are on the line, a mistake by just a few minutes can be detrimental. That’s why the ability to stick to strict time constraints and requirements shouldn’t be just anyone’s responsibility. Medi-Ops continues to provide the highest quality transportation services in which timing is one of the highest priorities.
Medi-Ops works hard on implementing high-quality and innovative medical logistics for any situation. With our innovative and future-thinking mindset, we are constantly looking ahead on how to continuously tweak and change logistics in order to provide the most efficient transportation (for patients and medical products alike) possible. Another service offered is that of medical consulting so that we can meet everyone where they are at and improve the medical transportation industry one step at a time!