Home visit dispatch

What the dispatch board manages

The Home Visit Dispatch Board follows a home collection from the first appointment through assignment, tube pickup, field collection, return, and per-sample lab receipt. Use it only for orders whose visit type is Home. The board appears when home-visit dispatch is enabled and your role has dispatch access.

You can also open the board directly from Order Details > Actions > Manage Home Visit. Use Print Home Visit Barcodes there before preparing the physical tubes and containers. This keeps the order, patient, visit, and sample handoff connected.

Work queues

Queue	What belongs here
All Open	Every unfinished home-visit operation in the branch.
Needs Scheduling	Home orders without a confirmed address and appointment.
Awaiting Assignment	Scheduled visits that still need a carrier or branch user.
Active Visits	Assigned visits moving through pickup, travel, collection, or return.
Lab Receipt	Returned visits with one or more samples waiting for receipt and a saving location.
Exceptions	Stale, failed, cancelled, or blocked work that needs review.

Choose a queue, then choose a visit in the left rail. The operations desk keeps the selected visit open on the right with patient contact information, schedule, accountable assignee, field timeline, and one custody row for every barcode.

Schedule and assign

Use Schedule Visit to confirm the full collection address, date, and local branch time. Include the building, floor, apartment, landmark, and useful contact notes in the address.

You may assign either:

• an active carrier allowed to work in the branch; or
• an eligible operations, technician, or manager user from that branch.

If you do not assign anyone during scheduling, the visit stays in Awaiting Assignment. Select the visit, open Actions, and choose Assign Carrier / User. Before tube handoff, the same control is labelled Reassign and can move responsibility to another active carrier or branch user. The action is available to managers, Operations, and custom users granted the dispatch assignment permission. Scheduling, assignment, tube handoff, status recovery, exception closure, and order access are kept together in this Actions menu.

After assignment, use Actions > Confirm Tube Handoff and select every physical barcode handed over. On a revisit, this list contains only the missing or replacement barcodes assigned to that new attempt. Partial handoff is rejected. This moves the visit to Tubes Picked Up and unlocks the route statuses.

Operations normally lets the carrier report field milestones. If the carrier missed an update, use Update Visit Status, choose only the next valid state, and enter a meaningful operational reason. Kashef retains the Operations user, old and new states, and reason in the timeline. This recovery action does not bypass sample requirement confirmations.

Carrier field workflow

The assigned carrier uses the mobile Carrier Portal. Home visits appear before inter-lab transfer work.

1. Assigned: Compare the barcode, tube type, sample type, and test codes. Select every listed tube and use Confirm tube pickup. The carrier cannot leave with only part of the required handover.
2. Tubes Picked Up: Use Start route when leaving the lab.
3. En Route: Use Arrived at patient only after reaching the collection address.
4. Arrived at Patient: Process each sample separately. Enter the actual collected volume and confirm every preparation requirement as Met, Unmet, or Override.
5. Collection Complete: This state is reached automatically after every required sample is successfully collected. Use Heading back to lab when beginning the return. The carrier may also head back earlier from En Route or Arrived at Patient when operationally necessary, but must explain the early return. Arrival and collection are never marked complete merely because the carrier returned.
6. Heading Back to Lab: Use Finished at lab only after the samples and carrier reach the receiving desk.

An Unmet requirement keeps that sample uncollected and visible for follow-up. Use Override only when the lab's approved protocol allows it; an accountable reason is mandatory and retained with the sample.

If an action is rejected, read the validation message, correct the tube selection, requirement, volume, assignment, or visit state, and retry. Do not skip milestones by asking lab staff to mark the visit complete.

Receive returned samples

When the carrier marks the return as finished, the visit enters Lab Receipt. In the selected visit, use Receive at Lab for each barcode:

1. select one collected sample;
2. select its active branch saving location, such as a refrigerator, rack, or shelf; and
3. confirm receipt.

Kashef changes the clinical sample to Received, records the receiving user and time, and places it in the selected location. The visit becomes Lab Receipt Complete only after every returned sample is received. Samples then continue through the normal Sample Log and processing workflow.

Never select a convenient location temporarily. The selected location is part of the custody record and must match the physical placement.

Field timeline and audit trail

The visit slide-over records scheduling, tube pickup, departure, patient arrival, collection completion, return departure, lab return, and final receipt. The sample handover section shows collection and receipt times, exceptions, and saving locations by barcode.

Assignment, status changes, unmet requirements, overrides, collection, and receipt also remain in the activity history. Use this evidence when investigating a missing tube or timing dispute.

Exceptions and stale visits

Review Exceptions before routine work. Common cases include an unreachable patient, an incorrect address, unmet preparation, a failed visit, or an overdue return.

A finished, failed, or cancelled attempt with uncollected barcodes shows Revisit required in Exceptions. Open the visit, then use Actions > Schedule Revisit. Enter the reason, new date and time, and assign the same carrier or a different eligible carrier or branch user. Kashef creates a linked attempt containing only the samples still requiring collection. Samples already collected stay attached to the earlier attempt and can still be received by their barcode. If an old uncollected sample had incorrectly advanced into processing or results, Kashef rejects that unsafe record and creates a replacement barcode for the revisit.

Use Visit Attempts and the operation timeline to compare assignees, schedules, reasons, and actual evidence across attempts. A green route milestone means its timestamp or per-sample evidence exists; later statuses never turn skipped arrival or collection milestones green.

Kashef checks open visits every hour. A visit becomes stale 24 hours after its scheduled time, reaches level 2 after 72 hours, and level 3 after 7 days. Managers receive a retained in-app alert.

After real follow-up, either reschedule the visit with a confirmed new appointment or use Close Stale Visit. Closure requires a Cancelled or Failed outcome and a meaningful reason of at least 10 characters. It preserves the order, visit, notifications, and audit history.

Inter-lab transfers are separate

The lower Inter-lab Transfer Queue is only for samples that must continue from the home-order branch to another branch or partner lab. Claim, pickup, drop-off, and destination receipt for those transfers remain in the sample-transfer workflow. Do not use an inter-lab transfer to represent the carrier's home-visit tube pickup or return to the originating lab.