Modernizing Chain of Custody for Healthcare Laboratories

The Challenge

Traditional chain of custody processes relied heavily on paper manifests, handwritten signatures, and manual reconciliation between collection sites, transportation providers, and laboratory staff. Paper documentation could be misplaced or damaged, manual entry increased transcription risk, staff spent significant time reconciling shipment records, and investigating missing or delayed specimens required reviewing multiple disconnected records.

The Solution

Health Futures worked closely with laboratory operations, logistics teams, and frontline staff to redesign the custody workflow rather than simply digitizing existing forms. The digital platform captures every custody event from specimen pickup through transportation and laboratory receipt, creating a continuous, time-stamped record of each transfer with barcode-based verification, electronic signatures, role-based workflows, exception reporting, dashboards, and integration points for existing laboratory systems.

Key Capabilities Delivered

• ▸Digital chain of custody records for specimen pickup, transportation, and laboratory receipt
• ▸Barcode-based specimen verification to simplify handoffs and reduce manual entry
• ▸Electronic signatures for custody transfers across collection, courier, and laboratory teams
• ▸Real-time shipment tracking, status updates, and automated manifest generation
• ▸Comprehensive audit trails with exception and discrepancy reporting
• ▸Secure, role-based access controls and reporting dashboards for operational oversight
• ▸Integration-ready architecture for existing laboratory information systems
• ▸Workflow support for routine transportation and specialized custody documentation