Over the last ten years CGT Therapies have risen in volume and complexity, making it critical for supply chain steps to progress seamlessly, in order and on time. OCELLOS automates end to end. These complex processes often involve a number of stakeholders both within and outside of the organization, for example partners such as specialist logistics partners and manufacturers. The job of co-ordinating all of these separate parties can be stressful, particularly when up against tight timescales and when the stakes are so high for patients. OCELLOS aims to minimise the dependence on manual tasks and with this, the likelihood of errors or things being missed that could interrupt, delay or otherwise threaten the therapy delivery process. A full implementation of OCELLOS has been shown to reduce the number of manual tasks that a therapy manager has to undertake in a therapy journey from hundreds to under ten, allowing them to concentrate on other tasks that bring more value to the business or patients. Aiming to reduce the stress of delivering therapies quickly and efficiently and ensuring that information flows through the supply chain seamlessly.
Here are ten examples of the tasks that can be automated:
1. Patient Scheduling
Scheduling patient treatments end to end can be complex and require multiple appointments to be coordinated with logistics, manufacturing timescales and availability. In a traditional system, this would involve a member of the team coordinating the activity and the bookings so that they were all planned out. A single change in this schedule, such as a manufacturing slot not being available, would then knock on throughout the system and mean that all of the other activity would have to be adjusted. OCELLOS calculates the therapy timeline based on the parameters for each specific therapy and then uses manufacturing availability to schedule the key dates and appointments to ensure that the timelines are met.2. Book Manufacturing
In order to calculate therapy timelines and streamline the patient scheduling process, OCELLOS tracks manufacturing availability at the various partner sites that are involved. When scheduling treatment, the health care provider is given a clear calendar of manufacturing slots with a timeline of key dates that would need to be met. Once the requested slot is confirmed by the manufacturer’s system, OCELLOS places the relevant bookings on the manufacturer and the courier without the user having to leave the OCELLOS app.3. Book & Track Logistics
OCELLOS can fully integrate with logistics providers, presenting as much or as little tracking information as is required, and integrating it either into the audit trail and therapy journey reports, or using it to drive notifications to prompt users once key milestones are reached. The OCELLOS logistics widget can integrate with a range of logistics providers to trigger real-time alerts as to shipping status and where available temperature information, shipping unit battery life, and location.4. Label Templating
OCELLOS connects with labelling systems to print labels for patient starting materials and finished therapies. Labels can be configured to include the patient specific information that is required for tracking the therapy journey in detail and safeguarding Chain of Identity, as well as ensuring that the layout and the information remains consistent. Labels can be generated in various languages as required for localized use and the system will select the correct language template based on the settings that have been configured, helping to safeguard against user error.5. User Notifications
OCELLOS can send uses user notifications either within app or via email (or both) to advise users when there is an action that requires completion. These can be determined based on the therapy process and can be triggered by events such as the beginning or end of a key milestone, or as a result of process exceptions or deviations. The content of the notifications is configured to match the process to ensure that each user is aware of what the next steps are to progress the therapy journey.6. Manufacturing Status Updates
With advanced, step by step integration into the manufacturing partner system, it is not only the production slots that can be booked. The progress of the therapy through the manufacturing process can be monitored in real-time for key steps, such as manufacturing start and end times, QA checks, fill, and finish. This means that the progress of each dose for each therapy can be closely monitored and corrective action taken pro-actively if timelines or processes need to be adapted. Via this integration, OCELLOS can also accept documents from external systems and add these to the audit trail automatically.7. Benefits Verification
For commercial treatments, assessing patient benefits and insurance coverage etc. is critical but adds administrative processes and time delay to the process of getting treatment started. OCELLOS can be integrated with patient hub services application such as Fusion by AmerisourceBergen’s Lash Group. These applications focus on reducing the time to treatment buy providing information on a patient’s benefits at point of registration and providing electronic prior authorization in collaboration with the major payers. By using OCELLOS to automatically retrieve this information at the point of patient registration, a number of administrative steps are avoided and patient treatment can be scheduled more quickly and effectively.8. Storage Alerts
The need to place products in storage can introduce additional risk as storage conditions and times require careful monitoring. OCELLOS can be configured to monitor and alert on the remaining charge period for a product stored in a shipper or products approaching expiration calculated from previous entered dates. These notifications can appear within the app to specific users or be sent via email as required by the process or the client, to ensure that critical deadlines are not overlooked.9. Audit Data Collation
OCELLOS automatically ties every record and action to the patient ID, creating a full audit trail that also feeds the Chain of Identity and Chain of Custody reports. Each action and approval is recorded in the system with the user ID and a time stamp to ensure full traceability for each therapy. This includes linking other documents such as product labels, airway bills and manufacturing records to the patient journey if required. This means that the full audit trail is searchable, reportable and electronically stored in a single location rather than requiring manual collation or filing.10. Multi Cycle Therapies
OCELLOS can help to manage therapies that have multiple cycles as part of their process, triggering and tracking a new cycle at the specified point of the process. These cycles can run concurrently, staggered or consecutively as required by the process for the therapy or the patient. The cycles can follow the same pathway or could be a secondary sample that is being processed through another process with a different starting material that is designed to coincide with a previously started process. OCELLOS can manage single therapies with multiple indications or collection or dosing cycles and can manage multiple therapies from a single platform. Integrating with a wide range of specialist parties to ensure smooth information flow in real-time with configuration of workflows that match your processes precisely. To find out how OCELLOS could be deployed to assist your therapy journey, read more about recent projects or book a free demo today
Article by Helen Hopkins - 3 Nov 2022
