Design, devel­op and imple­ment a new statewide elec­tron­ic spec­i­men track­ing sys­tem that lets us know where every patient spec­i­men is at all times, ensur­ing they arrive safe­ly, every time? 

It’s a big ask but was deliv­ered by our clever Aku­na team using human-cen­tred design.

As a new­ly formed statewide ser­vice, we inher­it­ed a dis­parate range of spec­i­men man­age­ment process­es and plat­forms that couldn’t unite to deliv­er the excep­tion­al per­for­mance we aspire to.

Fax­es and oth­er paper­work were still being used at some sites to record and com­mu­ni­cate the where­abouts and cus­tody of patient spec­i­mens. Spec­i­men recep­tion teams were con­cerned, and couri­er dri­vers frus­trat­ed. There were also our patients, clin­i­cians and police and jus­tice part­ners to consider.

What bet­ter way to under­stand the issue and find the best solu­tion than engag­ing with them, those clos­est to the prob­lem? Focus groups, work­shops and meet­ings were held with key stake­hold­ers, forg­ing rela­tion­ships that last­ed from con­cep­tion to user-accep­tance test­ing and a pilot.

Despite the chal­lenges of COVID-19, Akuna’s statewide roll­out began in Octo­ber 2021 and is now complete.

By June 2022, it was in place at 64 labs includ­ing all five FASS sites and the NSW Health Statewide Biobank; in use by 900 trained staff; had tracked 97,000 eskies and pack­ages; moved 495,000 patient sam­ples; and reduced paper-based process­es at some sites.

Its capa­bil­i­ties are beyond that avail­able any­where else in Aus­tralia or from off-the-shelf solu­tions. It’s a win for effi­cien­cy, reli­a­bil­i­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and most impor­tant­ly – con­fi­dence in our chain of cus­tody of pre­cious patient samples.