When a patient is waiting for medication or a clinical site is expecting critical supplies, care decisions hinge on shipment timing. The faster patients and care teams learn of potential delays, the faster they can adjust treatment schedules, arrange replacement shipments, or take other steps to fill gaps and ensure care continuity.
But that visibility isn’t always easy to provide. When tracking and communications rely on manual processes and disconnected systems, recipients can spend valuable time searching for updates — or even worse, receive critical information too late to act on it.
FedEx Tracking+ helps healthcare organizations create a more proactive experience with near real-time shipment tracking and automated communications, giving recipients earlier insight into delivery timing and status.
Why real-time shipment tracking and communications matter in healthcare
When shipment information isn’t readily available, answering a simple question like, “When will my medication arrive?” can require coordination across multiple parties. A patient may ask their care team, who may then need to reach out to a pharmacy or another party to find the latest information.
That back-and-forth creates additional work for healthcare teams while leaving the recipient waiting for an answer. And when a shipment is time-sensitive, delays in getting that information leave less time to adjust plans if the delivery is running late.
Real-time tracking and proactive communications can improve that experience, making it easier to get timely shipment information to recipients and giving healthcare teams earlier awareness when a delivery may require attention.
How FedEx Tracking+ supports healthcare tracking and communications
FedEx Tracking+ combines near real-time, multi-carrier tracking data with customizable communications and automated workflows to give healthcare organizations greater visibility into shipments as they move toward delivery.
Here are three ways healthcare organizations can use these capabilities to create a more seamless recipient experience.
1. Help keep patient care on track when timing matters
For patients who rely on medication deliveries, timing can directly affect their ability to stay on schedule with treatment. This can be especially important for specialty pharmacy patients whose medications may need to arrive within specific treatment windows.
When a time-sensitive shipment is delayed, identifying the issue early gives patients and care teams more time to solve the issue. For example, if a medication will not arrive when expected, a care team may need to arrange a replacement shipment to avoid interrupting the patient’s treatment schedule.
FedEx Tracking+ allows healthcare organizations to configure shipment events as triggers for automated notifications. If a delay occurs, patients and care teams can be alerted automatically, providing earlier visibility into a potential disruption.
2. Keep patients updated while protecting sensitive information
Proactive shipment communications can be more complicated in healthcare because organizations must comply with HIPAA. For some organizations, navigating those requirements can make it difficult to determine what Protected Health Information (PHI) can safely be included in an update.
Consider an at-home testing kit. A shipment notification needs to provide delivery information without revealing details that could associate a named patient with testing for a specific condition.
FedEx Tracking+ allows healthcare organizations to customize automated email and SMS notifications. Organizations can control what information appears in each message while still sharing relevant details, such as who the shipment is from and when the recipient can expect it to arrive.
3. Simplify tracking for complex shipments to clinical sites
A single order for a clinical site may not always arrive in a single package. Healthcare manufacturers may rely on multiple distributors to fulfill an order, leaving recipients to track several packages and tracking numbers. Separate notifications for each package can also contribute to notification fatigue, making important updates easier to overlook.
FedEx Tracking+ can consolidate multiple tracking numbers under one order, giving recipients a single view of the overall shipment and consolidated updates rather than separate notifications for every package.
That consolidated view can benefit senders, too. Healthcare organizations can monitor packages across an order in one place, making it easier to identify when an individual shipment requires attention.
Rethinking the role of real-time tracking and communications in healthcare
In healthcare, shipment tracking should do more than answer the question, “Where is my package?”
The right tracking and communication capabilities help organizations act on delivery events. This could mean responding to a delay that may affect treatment, communicating with patients while protecting sensitive information, or simplifying visibility into a complex order.
By making shipment information easier to access and act on, healthcare organizations can create a more connected experience for recipients and the teams supporting them.
Connect with FedEx to explore how Tracking+ can help keep patients and clinical sites informed throughout delivery.
