A new recollection workflow

At Eugene we custom build our own internal Patient Management System called “Genie” so that we can provide the best care to the most amount of people.

One of the more challenging operations tasks we perform at Eugene is recollecting failed samples. Around 7% of saliva samples fail for a variety of reasons from food contamination to DNA quantity issues. Typically saliva kits are handled by our operations team but when it comes to recollections, both our clinical and ops teams will often become involved to make sure the person who’s sample has failed is given all the information they need to make the decision whether or not to recollect in the shortest period of time. The faster we know, the sooner we can ship the kits and the sooner the results will come back.

There are two main categories of failure, problems with quality or quantity of DNA, and user error. If a customer does not include legible identifiers like name and DOB with their sample, testing cannot proceed and a recollection will be required. All other failures are quality and/or quantity issues. These can result from contamination (from food or bacteria for example); dilution (from drinking water too close to providing the sample); if you have a low white blood cell count (from taking antibiotics or being on chemotherapy for example). Some people just shed less cheek cells into their saliva-we recommend massaging or chewing your cheeks to overcome this.

We’ve recently completed a new tool in Genie that helps our Ops team and Clinical team work together to contact Eugene customers and organise recollections. Here’s a behind the scenes look at that process. All the names and member information in these screenshots are fake from our development environment.

Step 1: Find and recollect

When counsellors get notified by the lab of a failed sample, they find the member in Genie and click the kit recollection button next to the kit ID of the failed sample.

Step 2: To flag or not to flag

If the provider of the sample has already consented to have a new kit sent to them, the counsellor in charge of the process can issue a recollection immediately which will create a work item for the Operations team’s next member shipping run. In many cases however the clinical team will need some time to contact the member and see if they would like to go ahead, so pressing the “Flag for recollection” button pushes the kit into a queue for the clinical team to action without Operations getting involved.

Step 3: Contact and proceed

Once a member is flagged for recollection they end up on the counsellors home screen. They’ll be contacted and if they decide to go ahead with the recollection, the counsellor will hit Proceed with recollection and they’ll disappear from the list.

Step 4: Ship new kits

The member now ends up in the queue for member shipping that’s actioned by our operations team during the next shipping run. We’ll get their kits shipped to them and they’ll go through the same process as before, i.e. getting the kits back to us and we’ll get their kits back to the lab.

It’s a pretty simple process and one of the many awesome little workflows we’ve set up to improve the experience for both our genetic counsellors and our Eugene customers.

Interested in being a part of a team that builds tools for delivering awesome healthcare experiences using modern tech? Head over to https://angel.co/company/eugenelabs and get in contact with us.