It is no doubt that monitoring the facility’s temperature and medical substances takes precedence in medical facilities. If these temperatures go awry, viruses and airborne diseases will make themselves comfortable all around the facility.
Not only that, but a drastic change in temperature in your freezer and refrigeration units can cause your vaccines and other critical medical substances to go bad. This can result in millions of dollars of losses each day if the temperature is not maintained correctly.
So how do you fix that issue? You use a temperature monitoring refrigerator.
In addition to that, you may want to use a cloud-based monitoring system that can update and backup data often. Continue reading below to learn more about how to continuously monitor your facility’s refrigeration or freezer units and who you can contact for more information.
What Is Temp Monitoring
Medical professionals must keep certain vaccines and medications in temperature-controlled environments in the medical field. To ensure their efficacy, you and your team must continuously monitor the refrigerator’s temperature. You can use several different tools, such as thermometers or data loggers.
Thermometers
Thermometers have been around for centuries and are one of the simplest ways to monitor fridge and freezer temperatures. Usually, a technician will tend to the freezer or fridge at least once or twice a day to log the unit’s internal temperature.
These readings are noted in a logbook by hand, and you can store them for record-keeping. Although this may seem easy to do, it isn’t ideal and poses several issues. If the unit’s temperature changes between the hours that the technicians come to check, you will most likely need to throw away the medicine or vaccines.
Data Loggers
Data loggers are instruments that have the capability to measure temperature readings electronically. They can also store the data electronically. This monitoring system offers continuous temperature monitoring, and it can alarm when the temperatures get out of their target range.
Data loggers cost more than standard thermometers, but they provide you with continuous monitoring of data, and you won’t have to log any information manually. You can save the data on a USB memory device or connect it to the local network.
Chart Recorders
Chart recorders are a low-cost and straightforward way to continuously record freezer and fridge temperatures. You can save and file the charts to create a record of the unit’s temperature.
A staff member will need to change the chart paper at least once a day or once a week. To ensure compliance, they must also store the chart safely.
Although this method has lower costs than most, the pens and charts must be changed regularly, which can quickly drive up the cost, especially if you have a dozen of them in use. Storage of these charts can quickly become an issue as they accumulate over time.
The FDA requires vaccine makers to keep records of their freezer and refrigerator temperatures for at least three years. This means that if you use the chart recorder method, you will need to keep approximately 1,000 charts for each unit.
High Rated Temperature Monitoring Refrigerator
Medical temperature monitoring does not need to be a complicated process. Instead, you can use three basic parameters to monitor for best results: power failure, freezer alarm panel, and independent temperature monitoring to make the process easier.
Monitoring the temperature independently from the freezer or refrigerator’s own internal temperature provides you with an excellent way to ensure that the temperature is already within your desired range.
Most freezers contain ports that allow you to insert a temperature probe without the need for drilling holes. If you notice that your freezer or refrigeration unit has an alarm feature, it most likely also has an alarm panel. If this is the case, you can use a monitoring solution, such as a SensoScientific monitoring sensor which will alert a user if the alarm goes off after hours.
Root Cause of Varying Temperatures
The root cause of temperatures fluctuating in freezers and refrigerators is power failures. All SensoScientific products will monitor your units for power failure by default when you have them installed.
When you receive an immediate notification about the power outage, you or another designated user can take action before the internal temperature rises. Most of these monitoring devices come with built-in battery backups that will keep your device lasting for up to twenty-four hours.
Alarming
As mentioned earlier, if the temperature changes drastically, you may need to throw away certain medical products, including vaccines. Unfortunately, it does not take long for drastic changes in temperature to affect their efficacy. When you have 24/7 temperature monitoring, you can have peace of mind knowing that the medical samples or stored vaccines and other medical supplies are safe.
If the temperature goes beyond the programmed limits, it will send a notification to the listed personnel. The message can be sent as an email, phone call, or text message, whichever you prefer. You can schedule the message to go to a list of people or a very few select partners.
Tiered Notifications
If you would like, there is a setting for the system to send you messages in escalated tiers. For example, if the alarm goes off, but the first wave of people don’t respond within a specific time, it will send the notification to the second wave of people. A data log of the time and person who acknowledged the alarm is saved electronically.
Datalogging
SensoScientific devices can record temperature data at set intervals and log more frequently after an alarm goes off. Using an electronic way to log your data ensures that you have a quick and reliable way to prove compliance.
If regulators ask for your documents, you can pull the data quickly to verify that your vaccines and other temperature-controlled medications stayed within their target temperature ranges. Users can view data logs, graph data, export logs, and view any other type of data remotely.
Installation
Newer cloud-based refrigerator and freezer temperature monitoring refrigerator systems are extremely simple to install. All you have to do is plug the monitoring system into an internet connection and connect the temperature probes.
Most systems allow you to connect up to twelve temperature probes. Once you have the physical system installed, you can program those devices via a website.
Over the Air Technology
If you are looking for a way to eliminate manual upgrades, you can do so with over-the-air technology (OTA). When you combine SensoScientific sensors with OTA firmware, you combine the accuracy and reliability of monitoring devices with automatic updates.
OTA updates help you keep up with your sensor’s software. Software is constantly changing and improving, thus, always expiring. If you want to ensure that your sensors collect the most accurate data possible, you need to update the software regularly.
Manual Upgrades vs. OTA
If you don’t already have over-the-air capabilities in your units, you most likely have to upgrade or replace your sensors manually. When you use regular old data logging temp monitoring tools, you have to manually change them or calibrate them to ensure they are in working condition.
Regularly changing these devices is detrimental to cost control and manual upgrades are cumbersome as you have to reprogram each sensor individually. This forces devices to be idle for a certain period of time.
Sensors are designed to operate for extended periods of time with minimal supervision. When you update them manually, you contradict the sensors’ low-maintenance design and make the entire software update process inefficient and highly inconvenient.
Benefits of Over the Air Updates
Using Over the air firmware updates rectifies software issues without the need to replace or physically upgrade hardware. You can program the updates to occur automatically from a sensor’s location.
You won’t have to take the probe out of commission, ensuring that the sensors collect accurate data. This ensures that the software for each sensor is continuously improved.
Continuous Improvement
Software features, product behavior, and infrastructure continuously improve across all devices. You no longer need to conduct manual upgrades, making this technology a scalable and more efficient solution for sensor software upgrades.
No Performance Disruptions
Sensors remain fully functional and interactive during over-the-air updates. This means you have no interruptions or downtime while the system updates and recalibrates.
100% Secure
When sending your data over the air, you want to ensure your data is as secure as possible. SensoScientific partnered with the Microsoft Azure cloud platform to utilize their FIPS compliant security to provide fully encrypted software updates.
No Manual Upgrades
As mentioned earlier, when you update this data via over-the-air technology, you won’t have to reprogram or upgrade any sensor manually. Instead, OTA enables all sensors and devices to update via internet connection.
Cost-Efficient and Scalable
Because this software allows you to upgrade multiple devices at once, it eliminates the time-consuming physical labor of manual upgrades. OTA firmware allows fleets of devices to upgrade and continuously monitor and record data with no downtime at all.
As developers deploy updates to service your continuous temperature monitoring needs, you can rest assured that these updates will automatically transmit to your sensors. OTA updates protect your company’s bottom line and phase out expensive upgrades.
Importance of Hospital Temperature Monitoring
In all healthcare facilities, it is required that they monitor the humidity and temperature ranges of critical medical equipment such as drugs and vaccines. Environment controls are crucial for ensuring that the drugs stay safe and efficient. When exposed to certain temperatures and humidity levels, it can make a drug either ineffective or toxic to ingest, which can lead to other issues such as malpractice lawsuits.
Viruses, Bacteria, and Fungal Spores
Another reason it is vital to control the environment where your medical supplies and controlled substances are stored is the risk of bacteria. The temperature in these areas dictates the fungal spores, viruses, and bacteria’s ability to survive. Bacteria and diseases thrive in warmer temperatures and exposure to light, and specific pollutants can also affect the state of their survival.
Staff Efficiency
Hospitals and medical facilities are responsible for administering medications, maintaining samples’ integrity, and more. Their staff members must be able to do both of these tasks efficiently and while following proper protocols and standards.
Staff efficiency is critical in medical facilities. With a lot of moving parts happening, it is hard to manually record data in a way that meets compliance regulations. Not to mention, there are tons of items that need continuously monitoring.
When you use archaic monitoring systems and have the potential for things to be out of commission, you waste time and money. Not only do you have to account for the possible data errors, but you must also account for labor costs. Logging items daily to ensure they are within the proper temperature range and quickly bring your production to a screeching halt.
Remote Temperature Monitoring Refrigerator
Remotely monitoring your essential medical substances is critical to ensure they stay within their required temperature range even after business hours. Instead of logging data manually or relying on out-of-date data loggers that you must recalibrate and reprogram often, you can use over-the-air technology in addition to your temperature monitoring refrigerator.
That way, if there are any outages or temperature issues, the system will alert staff members as soon as the incident happens. This will help your bottom line and will ensure that your business keeps its highly regarded reputation. Contact us now if you want to learn more about this over-the-air technology and how it can serve your facility.