ABMDR

ABMDR’s life or death situation - a need to act quickly with persistence, accuracy and a clear mind.

Operating in life or death situations, the Australian Bone Marrow Registry’s primary focus is to match donors of bone marrow / blood stem cells stem cells with patients in need. The Australian Bone Marrow Registry required a flexible partner to make last minute travel arrangements for their couriers to ensure rapid and safe delivery of their precious cargo. ABMDR couriers need to travel both domestically and internationally to secure the cargo and get back to Australia as quickly as possible, whilst ensuring the
journey was cost effective.

Objectives
 - Engage a courier to and from destination as quick as possible.
 - To minimise costs to achieve the quickest delivery of human tissue.
 - To ensure the travel manager had the experience to deal with such complex issues.

Strategy
 - Find airlines that could take special cargo on board.
 - Establish key relationships and define and execute a process with these selected suppliers.
 - Determine best/quickest route options to key markets.

Results
 - Reduced costs through smart buying such as purchasing fixed fares on the outbound journey, but flexible fares on the return in case a change is required due to donor issues.
 - Zero issues encountered by couriers with special handing requirements.
 - 100% of organs arrived at their destination in time and in good condition and many lives have been saved.
 - Up to date database of airlines and travel industry contacts who can facilitate difficult or high touch cargo.

Key insights
 - Concierge Business Travel had to understand the requirements of ABMDR such as how long the stem cells could be in transit and what was needed to keep the cells at the optimum level, for future use by another human being.
 - We listed and understood the key issues from a transportation perspective such as how stem cells could be transported and what documentation was needed by the courier when clearing customs in foreign countries.
 - Being persistent with airlines (this is a matter of life or death) Not all airlines will handle human organ or tissue transport.

“From a coordinators perspective as well as a courier’s perspective, it is essential that plans for the retrieval of marrow goes smoothly. We have never experienced a glitch in any of Concierge Business Travel’s travel arrangements.”
Deborah Hayes, Clinical Practice Coordinator,
Bone Marrow Transplant Coordinators, Royal Adelaide Hospital