Automated storage temperature monitoring

Beyond alerts and easy-to-access data, an automated temperature monitoring system can also help with regulatory compliance.

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How many times per day do you or a colleague check the temperature of your facility’s vaccine storage units? Or the storage units that keep your facility’s lab samples refrigerated? This timely practice is a necessary measure to ensure the safety of your facility’s vaccines, the precision of your facility’s lab results, and to maintain your facility’s regulatory compliance.

Imagine how much time you’d have to focus on other areas of your facility if a system performed these temperature checks automatically. If you update and modernize your temperature logging system, you won’t have to imagine — manual logging can be a thing of the past. While some modern temperature monitoring systems, like digital data loggers, can routinely record temperatures, not all can provide additional benefits like proactive alerts and easily accessible data.

These added benefits can go a long way in giving you and your staff more time for other tasks while also ensuring your valuable assets are stored safely, especially COVID-19 vaccines. Read on to learn more about the pitfalls of digital data loggers and the value that the additional benefits of alerts and easily accessible data can bring to your facility. Plus, learn how an updated temperature monitoring system can even help you comply with regulatory guidelines.

Advantages over data loggers

While digital data loggers can record temperatures automatically at routine intervals, they won’t notify you if one or multiple of those recorded temperatures are out-of-range. If you aren’t aware of them on time, these out-of-range temperatures could essentially ruin your valuable — and costly — assets in your storage units. Proactive alerts can do wonders in saving your facility from having to throw out tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of medications or vaccines, like what could have happened to this pharmacy.

In addition, you won’t have to meticulously and manually extract, upload, and comb through temperature data like commonly done with digital data loggers. This lengthy process takes time away from other tasks and fails to proactively tell you about out-of-range temperature conditions, which puts your assets at risk. In a day and age where nurses and doctors think that paper-based documentation processes waste time, an automated temperature monitoring system can be an integral part of optimizing staff efficiency at your facility.

Proactive alerts and accessible data

An automated temperature monitoring solution like Primex OneVue Sense™ uses NIST-compliant probes to routinely log and report refrigerator or freezer temperature data to the web-based OneVue^® software platform. Additionally, this platform sends a text message, email, or phone call notifying you that your storage unit temperature has left a specified, custom range. These notifications allow you to proactively take action before your valuable vaccine supply goes to waste or medications lose their efficacy — no matter where you are inside or away from your facility.

Further, the cloud-based OneVue software platform provides easy access to near real-time data from any device that has a web browser. Not only is this convenient for healthcare staff, but it is also better for your facility’s IT workings, as this cloud-based solution:

• Connects to your existing Wi-Fi.
• Does not require any additional IP gateways.
• Limits cybersecurity threats.

Complies with storage guidelines

Beyond alerts and easy-to-access data, an automated temperature monitoring system can also help with regulatory compliance.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Vaccine Storage and Handling Toolkit, the CDC requires COVID-19 vaccines to be monitored by a digital data logger. However, it doesn’t require one that provides proactive alerts, easily accessible data, and customized reports.

Primex OneVue Sense does just that, meeting and surpassing this CDC requirement by providing the most accurate storage temperature unit information and insight for any temperature excursion. The web-based OneVue software platform can print customized reports on demand, making meeting other regulatory requirements a breeze. Plus, Primex OneVue Sense temperature sensors utilize buffered temperature probes that come with annual certificates of calibration, making that part of environmental monitoring compliance effortless.

Additional technology

Aside from temperature monitoring, Primex has a wide range of health care facility improvement solutions, which include:

• OneVue Sense Differential Pressure and Indoor Air Quality Monitoring. Perfect for increasing safety efforts in delicate areas, such as hospital isolation and operating rooms.
• OneVue Sync™ Synchronized Time Platforms. Ideal for keeping hospitals and entire healthcare facilities running on the same time, with many different analog and digital clock varieties offered. Wired and wireless technologies are both available.
• OneVue Notify^® Visual Critical Notifications and General Messaging. Strengthen your facility’s safety and communication with OneVue Notify InfoBoard™ displays. These LED display panels convey visual critical notifications or general messaging, such as wayfinding directions, waiting times, or patient status. They can also display synchronized time and date and act as a code blue or elapsed timer for emergency response use.

Whether environmental monitoring, providing synchronized time, or adding a layer of communication throughout your facility, an automated system like Primex OneVue can be the all-in-one solution to improve the operations of your clinic, hospital, or health system.

Bob Modlinski is the content manager for Primex. For more information, email info@primexinc.com.