Our facility is in the process of intalling sensors in refrigs, freezers, etc. to centrally monitor temperatures and alarm alerts. For those of you who have this process in place in your Transfusion Services, I have a few questions:

1. How many sensors per device did you install?

2. Do you mainitain liquid in glass thermometers and reocrd those temps in your devices after validation of system?

3. Do you physically observe temps daily or do you access the remote monitoring data?

4. What are inspectors (AABB, CAP, FDA) looking at during your audits after system go-live?

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

Chris

 

1. How many sensors per device did you install?  1 sensor per device.   We have single, double and triple door units.  We do not have any walk in units.

2. Do you maintain liquid in glass thermometers and record those temps in your devices after validation of system?  We refer to a backup (liquid in glass thermometer or calibrated digital display) in the event of an alarm. 

3. Do you physically observe temps daily or do you access the remote monitoring data?  We take temps by logging into system.

4. What are inspectors (AABB, CAP, FDA) looking at during your audits after system go-live?  CAP/AABB/FDA barely looked at anything and I was ready!   I can't help you there.  

Edited March 6, 201411 yr by R1R2

1. How many sensors per device did you install?  1 sensor per device; the ones in our refrig have 2 probes, one for the top shelf and one for the bottom.  We also have a room temp/room humidity sensor.

 

2. Do you mainitain liquid in glass thermometers and reocrd those temps in your devices after validation of system?  Yes, we still keep thermometers in the equipment, but we do not record those temps.  We just have them in there for troubleshooting (if wireless temp system alarms).  We also use our recording charts as our backup; works well when we occasionally lose sensor contact.

 

3. Do you physically observe temps daily or do you access the remote monitoring data?  The techs go into the software and log the temps; this is really only to show that we are looking at them each morning.  They also write the display temp on the equipment and the recording chart temp.

 

4. What are inspectors (AABB, CAP, FDA) looking at during your audits after system go-live?  My inspectors so far have loved it.  They like the corrective action that is documented, they liked that we had a backup system, and they liked that maintenance is automatically paged after it has alarmed for 10 minutes.  We print graphs for each piece of equipment once per week and staple the recording chart to it; the inspectors liked that too.  Seems like they are really not OK with us going totally paperless for this quite yet.

Thanks for the information! We are hoping to remove as much paper as possible and only use one sensor  per device if we can get away with it. I really want to get rid of the Temp Charts - such old technology! (kind of like me) and I'm sure the new technology has to be better. Sounds like inspectors wll be happy if we perform our due diligence and validate that everything correlates.

I would also suggest you run your old system in parallel with the new system for a few months to identify any issues.