Metrics that Matter: Key KPIs for Medical Couriers

Transport is an essential part of medical service, and medical couriers are responsible for conveying items and supplies to healthcare facilities. Hence, medical couriers are expected to be consistent and reliable in the quality of service they provide.

To ensure that these standards are met, medical facilities should use key performance indicators (KPI) to evaluate the quality of services they receive. In this blog post, we discuss some of the most important KPIs to track in medical courier services and how they impact your healthcare operations.

What is a KPI?

KPI stands for Key Performance Indicator, a quantifiable measure of performance on a given task. Medical couriers use KPIs to set performance targets and gain insights that help inform the best decisions for a given facility.

Why are KPIs important when it comes to your medical courier?

Medical couriers are critical in the operations of hospitals, labs, and other healthcare facilities. However, their performance must be of the highest quality to ensure reliable transport of medical supplies and their safe, timely administration to patients.

Key KPIs for medical couriers

These KPIs are sound measurements of a courier’s competency and dependability.

1. On-Time Performance 

Your healthcare operation relies on reliable, on-time deliveries. As such, on-time performance— the percentage of deliveries that arrive on time—is an essential metric to track. Medical couriers calculate this by tracking the number of late deliveries in comparison to total deliveries. A qualified medical courier should operate with an on-time performance of 98% or greater. 

Using this metric benefits healthcare facilities because it ensures accuracy, efficiency, and predictability in their medical transport service provider.

2. Specimen Integrity

The integrity of specimens in transport should be carefully monitored and maintained by your medical courier. Some specimens require exact temperatures during transport and storage to maintain their integrity. Thus, medical couriers must maintain a temperature control system that suits every specimen at hand.

A medical courier’s capability to measure specimen integrity through temperature control readings guarantees each specimen’s safe transport. It also helps health facilities provide better patient care.

3. Driver Safety Measures

Safety is vital in all industries, especially in transportation. Medical courier drivers need to strictly follow traffic and driving rules and regulations. Some examples are using seat belts, keeping within speed limits, avoiding harsh braking and cornering. At Am-Tran we use these measures to provide monetary incentives for all of our drivers.

Adding “How’s My Driving?” stickers to receive feedback from other drivers on the road is also highly recommended.

Safe driving secures fragile specimens and assures clients of reliable service. 

4. Positive Barcode Scans 

If the client uses barcodes on their bags, they should expect their courier to provide a high percentage of positive barcode scans by the stop and specimen bag.

A courier scoring high on this metric gives healthcare facilities assurance that their items and specimens can be electronically tracked and tagged. 

5. Missed Pickups 

In the medical industry, delays could lead to life threatening results. Thus, healthcare facilities need to set a high bar on a courier’s sense of urgency. The number of late pickups should be at the very minimum. Couriers must also be required to indicate the reasons for any delay.

This metric is a good performance check and predictor of a courier’s reliability of service. In addition, it is an opportunity for facilities to create action plans to avoid missed pickups.

Our KPI track record

Am-Tran takes these KPIs very seriously and sees the metrics as a critical component of maintaining not just good quality service but also transparency with our customers. We track all the above KPIs and report on them monthly so that customers know exactly how we’re performing. 

We measure our performance against our rigorous standards for service. When it comes to on-time performance, our standard is 97% or greater. Our standard for specimen integrity and driver safety is 100%. 

If you are interested in learning more about how Am-Tran uses KPIs to improve efficiency, and what we can do to tailor a solution for our business specifically, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you.