Medical couriers are asked one question more than any other: can you prove it? StatVault answers with a custody record on every order, built from what the field observed, not only from what someone typed. It is specimen tracking that records who held the specimen, not just where the van was.
Declared versus observed
Most systems keep one version of the truth, and it is usually the declared one: the order said pickup at two, the driver tapped "picked up", so the pickup happened at two. StatVault keeps the declared plan and the observed evidence side by side.
Declared is the order, the route, the window, the assigned driver. Observed is what the field reported: where the phone was, which tag it read, when a lid opened, what the photo shows. When they agree, the record is quiet. When they disagree, you see both and you see why, instead of discovering it on a phone call from a lab.
The evidence on every order
- NFC. The driver taps the tag at the clinic box. A tap is proof the phone was at that box at that moment. See NFC proof of pickup.
- GPS. The driver app reports position throughout the shift, so arrival and departure at each stop are observed, not guessed.
- Photos. Drivers capture photos at the stop. A photo that reached dispatch another way can be attached to the order, and it is marked as added by dispatch. A SmartBox adds its own photo and lid events.
- Proof of delivery. The receiving name and time at the drop.
- Signatures. Captured on the driver's phone where the receiver signs.
Proof you require, where it matters
A company can require a pickup photo, a delivery photo or a signature, and the rule has a scope: an order type, a customer account, a site, a single door at a site, one specimen box or every registered box; always, on a driver's first visit, for STAT orders only, or at the last pickup of the day at a box. Rules add up and never cancel each other, a dispatcher can add more on a single order, and the driver app holds the driver at that step and says which rule asked. A rule can also just ask, with a popup the driver sees once and that never blocks. The case labs want most is the box-clear photo: at the last pickup of the day at each registered box, one photo of the empty box, and an end-of-day read of which boxes were cleared. A mail run that no rule names gets no prompts. At the end of the day a dispatcher looks at each box-clear photo and marks the box clear or not clear; a box judged not clear goes back among the misses and the driver is sent the photo with a message to return. That judgement is a person’s, recorded on the order.
A custody timeline on every order
Every order shows its custody timeline: each hand, each place, each time, in order. Pickup, every pass-off between drivers, and delivery are separate events, so a specimen that moved through two vehicles shows both holders and the moment it changed hands. Gaps are shown as gaps. A stop completed without a tap reads as exactly that, not as verified. When a gap turns into a question from a lab, an incident report starts from this record.
A hash-chained audit trail
Custody events are written to an audit trail where each event carries a cryptographic fingerprint of the one before it. That makes the record tamper-evident: an event cannot be quietly edited or removed without breaking the chain. A rolling sample of recent chains is verified every hour, around the clock. Order changes are written to the audit record, so what changed, when and by whom stays on the order.
Backups, stated plainly
The database is backed up continuously with point-in-time recovery. If something goes wrong, it can be restored to a chosen moment, not just to last night. Each courier's data is isolated by rules enforced inside the database itself, not only in application code.
Why it matters to the people you serve
Hospitals and labs do not want to hear that a specimen was probably picked up. Staff at New York's largest health system and an Ivy-affiliated academic medical center place orders through StatVault every day, and every one of those orders carries this record. See what runs in production.
Related
Further reading: how custody works in StatVault.
Questions couriers ask
- What counts as proof of pickup?
- An NFC tap at the box is the strongest proof. GPS at the stop, a photo, and the driver's completion of the stop are recorded too, and each is labelled for what it is.
- What does hash-chained mean?
- Each audit event carries a fingerprint of the one before it. Changing or deleting an old event breaks the chain, and verification catches the break. A rolling sample of recent chains is verified every hour.
- Are hand-offs between drivers recorded?
- Yes. A pass-off from one driver to another is its own custody event, so the record shows who held the specimen at every moment.
- What if the database fails?
- The database is backed up continuously with point-in-time recovery, so it can be restored to a moment before the failure.
- Can my clients see custody?
- Clients see their orders' milestones and tracking in their portal. The full audit trail stays with your dispatch team.
- Can I require a photo of the empty box at the end of the day?
- Yes. A proof rule on your specimen boxes asks the driver making the last pickup of the day at each box for a photo of the box, clear, and dispatch sees which boxes were cleared with a photo and which were not. Stops no rule names are never prompted.