subject: Shipping Medical Material When It's Hot Out [print this page] Much of the United States is located in a climate zone that is warm much of the time, and subject to extreme heat at others. This means that there are sometimes special precautions that need to be taken when shipping medical material. If you're shipping medical material with a San Francisco delivery service, you should ask what policies and equipment they have in place to make sure the material stays viable.
The reason that this is so important is because nothing is more destructive to medical material than heat. If it is exposed to high temperatures for any prolonged period of time, it quite often becomes useless. Heat can destroy a tissue sample so that it can no longer be tested, or render blood non-viable for a transfusion. These are obviously very important items, so they need to be protected.
The first thing that the courier needs to have is the best in medical transport vehicles. Any courier that is licensed to move medical material is going to have refrigerated transport units, but the better they are, the more likely they are able to be able to counter extreme heat outside. It is also important that they have employees that are trained in the handling of medical material properly for hot conditions. During extreme heat, it is extremely important that the material is exposed to the outside air as little as possible.
This includes things like both keeping the truck doors closed as much as possible, and making sure the drop off and pick up go as quickly as possible. Even though all medical material is transported in isolated containers, not even the best of these can shield 100% against the heat. The longer a cooler is outside, and the hotter it is, the larger the chance of the material within being affected by the heat.
If there is to be any transference of the medical material from one vehicle to another, there are extra precautions that can be taken. This is usually the case when shipping something with a very large shipping company that is shipping the medical material from coast to coast. If they need to transfer the goods from one vehicle to another, then it is for the best that they have a totally refrigerated terminal. That way, the vehicles can be indoors and out of the heat when they are opened, and the packages don't have to be exposed to outside air.
