Five ways to optimize logistics for an earlier peak shipping season

By Emily Gallo

 When shipping volumes surge during peak season, every package feels the pressure—from holiday gifts to time-sensitive patient-specific medications. And that surge is happening earlier in the year than ever before. To stock shelves for the holidays sooner, U.S. retailers were placing orders as early as May and June. 

 The impact on medication delivery during this time can be significant. For pharmacies whose focus should be on patients—not packages—the answer to mitigating shipping delays is to build a logistics solution optimized for peak season challenges. Here are five ways to do just that: 

 1. Automate workflow  

 An earlier peak season can disrupt on-time delivery, and fragmented technology only compounds the problem. For example, pharmacy technicians may need to manually navigate between multiple carrier platforms just to create a shipping label. They may have to log in to a national carrier’s portal, then jump to a regional shipping provider and finally head over to a local courier’s website. The time spent and potential for human error is significant.  

 When a patient calls to ask about the status of their medications, the pharmacy technician often has no single place to look because the data is scattered across multiple platforms. In recent internal research conducted by OptiFreight Logistics, we confirmed that pharmacies need shipping experiences that don’t require so much cross-domain translation. 

The solution is to consolidate multiple carriers, couriers and shipping modes into a single, integrated workflow—from label creation to final delivery. That way, pharmacy technicians can free up more time for patient care. 

 There’s another advantage during peak season as well: business continuity. By accessing multiple carriers within a single logistics platform, you have options. If one carrier can’t deliver on time, you can seamlessly choose another.  

 2. Improve shipment visibility 

 Many pharmacies receive a flood of calls from patients asking about the delivery status of their medications. These pharmacies could address the problem by improving shipment visibility, leveraging today’s AI-powered technology to track shipments in near real time. Pharmacy technicians could receive automated alerts regarding delivery windows, scan events and missed milestones.  

 If there’s a potential delay, patients could receive an automated SMS or email alert. So they wouldn’t have to call about delivery status in the first place, and pharmacy technicians could spend more time on patient care. 

 3. Gain highest priority treatment for critical shipments 

 During peak season, a delivery truck could carry a lot more packages than it usually does. Among the many holiday gifts could be a package that may save a life. When the on-time delivery of medications is this critical, there’s no room for error. 

 Pharmacies can bring more certainty to peak season by working closely with logistics partners that can help identify the carriers that will secure the highest priority treatment of critical shipments. An optimized logistics approach would include strategies for shipment recovery, delivery reattempts and on-demand cold chain care. 

 4. Get secure proof of delivery documentation 

 Regardless of how congested carrier networks become during peak season, pharmacies must continue to meet all state board of pharmacy and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) compliance and auditing requirements.  

 This includes securing proof of delivery (POD) documentation for every delivery and having it available on demand for several years. There are other requirements as well, such as having the prescription linkage connecting the patient and their medication to the shipping record. 

 Pharmacies can help meet these demands by replacing fragmented technology with the integrated workflow I discussed earlier. Pharmacy technicians would have one place to access the shipment information they need.  

 5. Protect your shipments 

 Some operational risks fall outside of a pharmacy’s control: Network congestion, other carrier issues and weather events don’t pause for critical medications. And when peak season collides with hurricane season or other severe weather, the potential impact can be severe.  

 A missing package could cost your facility thousands of dollars and require extra time working with the patient and processing the claim. Plus, traditional carrier coverage may not include “acts of God” or spoilage. 

 An optimized shipment protection solution would provide broad coverage for packages lost, damaged or delivered late—rendering the product invalid. Also, the solution should streamline the claims process, so pharmacy staff can spend more time where it’s needed most: caring for patients. 

 Together, these five strategies can help you optimize your approach to the challenges of an earlier peak season.  It’s the key to creating a more resilient logistics model. And the time to start is today.

Emily Gallo is senior vice president and general manager of Cardinal Health

OptiFreight® Logistics, focused on building technology products to innovate the way healthcare supply chain leaders manage logistics and remove cost.