Discrepancy between expected and received shipment

When specimens are shipped using LDMS, a printed manifest is also sent. This printed paperwork, in conjunction with the LDMS Shipping File data, is used to confirm that the physical specimens that were received match what was expected. It may be that the specimens were not packaged correctly or the shipment was prepared incorrectly in LDMS. If there is a discrepancy between the printed paperwork and the actual specimens that were packaged, the corrective measure will depend on when the error is discovered.

If the discrepancy is caught before the file is imported, the receiving laboratory should not import the file and instead contact the sending laboratory to get the correct shipping file. The sending laboratory should unship, correct, and re-create the shipping file and shipping paperwork, then send these to the receiving laboratory. The receiving laboratory can then safely import the corrected shipping file.

If the discrepancy is not caught until after the shipping file is imported, how to proceed will depend on the nature of the issue.

If the shipping file contained extra specimens that were not part of the physical shipment, the receiving laboratory now has these specimens listed at their laboratory in LDMS. Since the sending laboratory didn’t actually send the physical specimens, the receiving laboratory will need to send those specimens back in LDMS. This will move the data for the specimens back to the sending laboratory, where the specimens are still located.

To do this, the laboratory that received the shipping file with extra specimens will create a new shipment with those specimens, and then send the shipping file back to the originating laboratory. Once that laboratory has imported the shipping file, the data for those specimens will have been successfully moved back to the laboratory.

If the laboratory received specimens that were not part of a shipping file, the receiving laboratory must notify the sending laboratory in writing. The sending laboratory will need to create a shipping file with these specimens and provide that to the receiving laboratory so that they can be imported.

If there are any discrepancies between the physical specimen labels and the shipping report, the two laboratories should work together to resolve the issue appropriately.