subject: Medical Shipping During The Hot Summer Months [print this page] Whenever medical material is shipped with a trucking service, much more care is taken than when shipping regular goods. The value of the goods, and the fact that the health of patients can depend on their successful delivery, means that courier companies put far more effort into making sure that these types of deliveries are successful. That requires some extra effort during the summer months when it is particularly hot outside though. That is because these types of materials are extremely susceptible to damage which is caused by high temperatures.
When you're shipping medical material in the summer, you have to put a lot of thought into every element of the shipping. The truth is that if those goods become overly warm, they can become completely destroyed. The half life of biological materials like tissue, blood, and organs can become drastically reduced if overheated. Shipping medical material is a large responsibility, but a little attention to detail, and to temperature, should ensure a successful delivery.
The first thing that you need to pay particular attention to is the courier company that you're going to be shipping this medical material with. There are licenses and permits which are required by those who are going to transport these types of goods. They are also going to need to have a large fleet of temperature controlled vehicles, as well as temperature controlled storage if you ever need them to hold goods for a short period of time before completing delivery.
Packing the medical goods that you're shipping is also very important. Proper packing essentially provides you with the necessary line of defense between the hot summer air and the cool transport vehicle. Most of the time when cargo is being loaded, it is going to be carried outside before it is put in the vehicle, unless you happen to be loading from a facility with a temperature controlled loading bay. During the hot summer months, it wouldn't take much of that outside air to warm the cargo to the point where it is destroyed. If you pack medical material in properly cooled and insulated containers though, the cargo can stay cool long enough to survive its journey through the hot outside air. Making sure that the containers are also spill and break proof is also important. That way if they are dropped or jostled in any way, they won't burst open and expose the precious cargo to the devastating summer heat.
