This is part one in a two-part series. You can read part two here.
No matter what sector of the healthcare market you’re serving, you can do it more things more efficiently with healthcare fulfillment services.
After all, a huge part of healthcare services involves storing, handling, shipping and managing inventories of products that support this niche. From pharmaceutical fulfillment to nutraceutical fulfillment, healthcare logistics require special handling and the right environment, so not just any old warehouse will do.
What Can a Healthcare Fulfillment Service Do?
Unlike a traditional fulfillment service that might deal exclusively with non-perishable products like clothing or car parts, a healthcare fulfillment service has to have its eye on several balls all the time. Since products are constantly moving into and out of rotation, these facilities are designed with inventory systems that monitor expiration dates for delicate items like pharmaceuticals and track any necessary recalls for companies that manufacture medical devices like insulin pumps.
For many reasons, it’s vital to keep a constant eye on the ebb and flow of this information, and customer protection has to be high on the list of priorities for a healthcare fulfillment service. Shipping expired drugs or medical equipment with a recall isn’t just wasteful, it’s irresponsible and can open your company up to problems down the road.
But inventory isn’t the whole picture. A good healthcare fulfillment service will also offer the following services:
Custom literature fulfillment. When you send custom sample kits to doctors or new medical devices to patients, you want your products to stand out. Custom literature and packaging can really make your products memorable for their recipients.
Monitoring of all product encoding. Tracking information like batch number, lot control and product identifier are important to the success of companies who need healthcare fulfillment services. Because some drugs and medical equipment are highly regulated, knowing where they are at all times is vital to conforming to government regulations.
Maintaining cold supply chains. When you’re shipping consumer goods, it doesn’t usually matter too much if they get a little hot or a little cold, but healthcare items are temperature sensitive and can be damaged by temperatures even slightly outside of their comfort zone. A good healthcare fulfillment service will maintain a cold supply chain from warehouse to delivery, no matter what it takes.
Knowing what a healthcare fulfillment service can do will help you decide if that’s the right type of 3PL for your products, no matter what you intend to sell. In part two of this two-part series, we’ll discuss how to find the healthcare fulfillment service that’s perfect for your business.
