--- title: IVF Cryo Inventory and Chain of Custody Software in India (2026) url: https://curaverto.com/blog/ivf-cryo-inventory-chain-of-custody-software-india updated: 2026-09-05 source: first-party vendor documentation --- # IVF Cryo Inventory and Chain of Custody Software in India (2026) Category: IVF & Fertility · Author: Anexshe Revedha, Cofounder & COO · Reading time: 6 min read A cryo tank is the one place in an IVF clinic where the paper record and physical reality can quietly drift apart. This post walks through what a digital cryo inventory should actually record, how a straw should be allowed to change status, and where witnessing fits in, based on how CuraVerto's IVF module works today. Ask an embryologist where a particular patient's blastocysts are and the honest answer is often a walk to the logbook. Which tank, which canister, which goblet, which straw, frozen on what date, under which consent. When that book is the only record, every question about it depends on handwriting, on the last person who updated it, and on nobody having lost a page. A digital inventory does not remove the physical work of the tank room. What it changes is that the record is searchable, timestamped, and hard to alter without a trace. ## What "tracked to the straw" should mean CuraVerto's IVF module keeps a cryo inventory row for each stored embryo or oocyte, linked to the patient and to the IVF cycle it came from. The row carries the tank, canister and straw, an embryo reference, the embryo type and Gardner grade, the colour codes used on the straw, the date storage began, the annual storage fee, and the date the storage consent is valid until. The tank is a required field when a record is created, and canister and straw are captured alongside it, so the full location reads as one path from tank to straw on the record. Sperm has its own inventory in CuraVerto, because the physical unit is different. A sperm cryo record holds the freezing date, vial count, tank and canister numbers, colour code, pre-freeze and post-thaw counts and motility, an expiry date, and who froze it. A combined cryo bank view lists embryo and sperm records together and can be filtered by status, so a clinic can see everything currently in storage without opening patients one at a time. ## A straw should not be able to be used twice The most dangerous kind of inventory error is a record that says a sample is still available when it has already been thawed. CuraVerto handles this by taking status out of the ordinary edit path. Editing a cryo record can correct location, grading, billing and consent fields, but it cannot change whether the straw is stored or used. The only route that changes status is a dedicated "mark as used" action, and it enforces four things. - The record must currently be in stored status. A straw already marked used is refused. - The outcome must be one of three: transferred, discarded or donated. - A written note is required, and the server rejects a blank or whitespace-only note even if someone calls the API directly. - The update is guarded so that two near-simultaneous requests cannot both succeed. The second one is told the record was already changed and asked to refresh. Every create, edit and use is written to CuraVerto's audit log with a before and after snapshot of the record, the user, and the time. Changes to embryology bench records are limited to clinic roles that hold that responsibility (doctors, embryologists, admins and owners), while front-desk staff can still open and print. That split matters in a clinic where reception prints storage statements but should never be able to change what a tank holds. ## Chain of custody and witnessing An inventory answers where a sample is. A chain of custody answers who handled it, and whether a second person confirmed the step. CuraVerto's IVF module has a separate embryo custody trail for this: an ordered history of custody events per embryo across a cycle, stored in a table that the database refuses to update after the fact. Freeze, thaw, transfer, discard and biopsy are the event types that require a witness. The witness rules are deliberately strict. The witness is always the person signed in at the moment of confirmation, never someone whose name the operator types in, because an operator naming their own witness is just vouching for themselves. The operator cannot witness their own event. The witness must hold a specific embryology-witness permission, and an event can only be confirmed once. Each confirmation is recorded as a new row and written to the audit log. A candid note on scope: the witness confirmation and the custody trail run behind a separate embryology module flag that is switched on per clinic, and today they are exposed as a server-side capability. They are not the same thing as the cryo inventory tab, which is what a clinic uses day to day. If witnessed thaw and transfer records are a requirement for your lab, ask about enabling them during scoping rather than assuming they arrive with the inventory. | Question an audit or a patient will ask | Where CuraVerto records the answer | | --- | --- | | Where is this embryo right now? | Tank, canister and straw on the cryo inventory record | | When did storage start, and until when is consent valid? | Storage start date and consent valid-until date on the same record | | Who marked it used, when, and why? | Mark-as-used action: outcome, required note, timestamp, audit log before and after | | Did a second person confirm a thaw or transfer? | Witness confirmation on the custody event (embryology module flag) | | Who owes the annual storage fee? | Annual fee, free-storage-until and next billing due dates | ## Storage renewals and consent expiry Storage is a long relationship, and the dates that matter are the fee due date and the consent renewal date. From the cryo tab, staff can send a WhatsApp reminder to the patient for storage billing due, consent renewal due, or both. It works only on records still in stored status, and the record is stamped with when the last reminder went out so nobody sends the same one twice by accident. CuraVerto's Horizon follow-up board also lists embryo storage renewals, storage consent renewals and sperm storage renewals as due-date items, banded by how close they are. Horizon is a Plus plan feature. Automatic sending from Horizon depends on WhatsApp templates being approved by Meta first, so treat the manual reminder from the cryo tab as the dependable path and automatic sending as something to confirm during setup. ## What software does not do Software records the physical world; it does not monitor it. CuraVerto does not read tank temperatures or liquid nitrogen levels, and it does not replace your lab's written procedures for labelling, verification and tank audits. Regulatory duties under the ART (Regulation) Act 2021 and the ICMR guidance around consent and record retention depend on your registration category, so confirm the specifics with your registration authority or legal advisor. Our ICMR consent checklist post below covers what the consent side of the paperwork generally involves. ## Plan and availability The IVF and Fertility module, including cryo management, is part of CuraVerto's Plus plan at ₹49,999 per year, and it needs the IVF module activated on the clinic's account. A clinic on the Essential plan at ₹9,999 or the Pro plan at ₹24,999 would need to move to Plus first. ### Related reading - [ICMR ART Act Consent and Documentation Checklist](https://curaverto.com/blog/icmr-art-act-consent-documentation-checklist) - [Best IVF EMR Software in India](https://curaverto.com/blog/best-ivf-emr-software-india) - [IVF EMR vs General Clinic Software](https://curaverto.com/blog/ivf-emr-vs-general-clinic-software) - [CuraVerto for IVF and fertility clinics](https://curaverto.com/solutions/ivf) ## Frequently asked questions ### Can CuraVerto track frozen embryos down to the straw? Yes. CuraVerto's IVF cryo inventory records the tank, canister and straw for each stored embryo or oocyte, along with the embryo reference, Gardner grade, colour codes, storage start date, annual fee and consent valid-until date, all linked to the patient and the IVF cycle. Sperm samples are tracked separately by vial count, tank, canister and expiry. ### Can a stored embryo be marked as used twice in CuraVerto? No. Status can only change through a dedicated mark-as-used action, which accepts only a record currently in stored status, requires a transferred, discarded or donated outcome and a written note, and is guarded so that two simultaneous requests cannot both succeed. The change is written to the audit log with before and after snapshots. ### Does CuraVerto support double witnessing for thaw and transfer? CuraVerto has an embryo custody trail and a witness confirmation for freeze, thaw, transfer, discard and biopsy events. The witness is the signed-in user, the operator cannot witness their own event, and the confirmation is stored as an append-only record. It runs behind a separate embryology module flag enabled per clinic, so confirm it during scoping. ### Does CuraVerto remind patients when embryo storage consent or fees are due? Staff can send a WhatsApp reminder from the cryo tab for storage billing due, consent renewal due, or both, and the record shows when the last reminder was sent. The Horizon follow-up board, a Plus plan feature, also lists storage and consent renewals as due-date items. Automatic sending from Horizon depends on approved WhatsApp templates. ### Which CuraVerto plan includes IVF cryo management? In CuraVerto, IVF cryo management is part of the IVF and Fertility module, which requires the Plus plan at ₹49,999 per year plus activation of the IVF module on the clinic's account. It is not available on the lower tiers. --- Canonical: https://curaverto.com/blog/ivf-cryo-inventory-chain-of-custody-software-india Contact: sales@curaverto.com This document is CuraVerto's own description of its product.