Building a Better Specimen Box

When he was director of the U-M Health System laboratory’s specimen processing section, Steve Mandell, M.D., had a problem: By the time blood specimens from U-M patients arrived at the lab for processing, they were already more than an hour old.

A bit of detective work identified the reason for the delay: Busy phlebotomists, who must draw blood from hundreds of patients once or more every day, had no convenient places in the hospital where blood samples could be stored for pick-up and delivery to the laboratory. Phlebotomists had to deliver their blood samples to one processing center. So, to save time, they waited until they finished drawing an entire ward before making the trip.

“To improve turnaround time, we wanted blood to be picked-up and delivered to the lab every 15 minutes,” says Mandell. “To do that, we needed drop boxes where specimens could be left unattended, but remain safe and secure.”

With funding from a Health System Fostering Innovation Grant, Mandell assembled a team of 25 people — including nurses, managers, phlebotomists, pathologists, housekeepers and others — to create what was now officially called a “unit-based specimen drop box.”

The committee had a long list of requirements: The box had to fit inside the wall. Nothing could protrude into the hospital hallway. It had to have a window, so couriers could see if specimens were inside. The window had to be frosted, so people couldn’t see identifying patient information. The drop box had to be made from material that could be sterilized. It had to have a lock. It had to be big enough to hold a variety of laboratory container sizes. And it had to be easy to install.

Steve Mandell spent months searching for compact storage cabinets in catalogs and on Web sites, but nothing was quite right.

Then Mandell went to a faculty meeting and met Jim Geiger, a guest speaker invited to talk about the Medical Innovation Center. After listening to Mandell’s problem, Geiger introduced him to Toby Donajkowski, who runs the MIC Prototype Laboratory. Donajkowski designed and built three versions of a stainless steel cabinet with a frosted Plexiglas window that could be installed within a wall.

“Nothing did it for us until we met Toby,” says Mandell, who is currently assistant professor of pathology and director of the MLabs Program. “He came up with a design prototype that met our needs perfectly.”

in fact, the new specimen storage box was such a great idea that a Michigan manufacturing firm was hired to make 30 of them to be installed near nursing stations throughout U-M Hospital. Licensing reps in the U-M Office of Technology Transfer are negotiating with a Michigan medical supply company to market the box, so it can be made available to laboratories and hospitals everywhere. —SP