Our facility is going to a centralized, hospital wide temperature monitoring system. We have had virtually NO training, so I am not sure of all the details on how it works. Currently we have the temperature wheels on all the equipment and manually take the temps at midnight. Obviously, all equipment is alarmed for out of temp and they are on a separate alarm board that also rings the operator.

When the new system (Docutemp) is final implemented, they state that our wheels can go away. However, they only want to record the temps every 4 hours, because any more often then that seems to use up the batteries too fast. The equipment will still be on our current alarm board and the individual equipment alarm. For some reason, not having continuous monitoring makes me very uncomfortable.

I realize that AABB and CAP standards state that temps must be taken every 4 hours if not continuously monitored. Do you think this new system is an acceptable alternative? It just makes me kind of nervous.

You could still use your temp charts - I would. If it only samples the temp q4hrs does/will the system (not your internal monitors) recognize an out of range during the inbetween times? When the system finds an out of range temp what happens - who is notified - what if your internal monitors and the system don't agree on temps (what is your tolerance for differences in temp between the 2)?

Hello,

I think David is right. What is your tolerance to risk and the impact on your products if temperature goes out of its range during the inbetween time? If you are investing time, money, new procedures...into a new monitoring system, why keeping your old one? They are many monitoring system that have a sampling rate lower (every minutes, 5 mns...). Isn't it redundant to keep 2? And yes, as David said, the more sensors/systems you will have, the more chance of having different temperature you'll get as accuracy/resolution/calibration/type of sensor/location... could be different. That's just my opinion...

Benoît

I would strongly suggest you get sensors that have user replaceable batteries. The ones we currently have must be returned to the vendor when the battery dies. Readings are taken fairly frequently, about every 8-9 minutes, and the batteries often die in a year or less. The vendor now has new sensors with replaceable batteries but that would mean purchasing all new sensors (over 400 for our two sites). Also, make sure you get sensors with probes that you can immerse in fluid. I insisted on that from the start but the other labs at first got sensors that they had to mount inside the fridge or freezer. It is easy for the signal to drop if the antenna is inside a well insulated fridge or freezer. I mount the sensor housing (which has the antenna) outside and run the lead with the probe inside the unit.

I'm afraid if you've already given money to this vendor, you may be disappointed long-term. There are other vendors that are much better. You can find information and forum discussions about these vendors on www.labsurfer.org

good luck.

We too have one of those centralized temp monitoring systems, but I have refused to get away from the temperature charts or taking manual temperatures. This system that we have in place chronically forgets to take a temperature or the temperature sensor is actually not seen by the main terminal so the temp is not sent to the temperature system.

I intend to leave the chart wheel system in place when we go live with our system because that will be the downtime backup and I don't want people to have to search for charts and not remember the process. I am willing to tolerate the duplication of effort for now.

A centralized system is nice to have, but I have never used one that only documented temps. every 4 hours; they were all continuous. While regulations do state documentation only required every 4 hours, like you, I would be concerned about that.

Even with our continuous system, the Facilities Dept. in our Hospital had set them to have a 5 minute delay between the time the out-of-temp. range was noted (which was set at 0.5 above and below the extreme acceptable temps) and the time we actually received a warning. There have even been occassions where in that 5 minute window, the temp. has come dangerously close to being out-of-range due to equipment failure. I would leave the charts if they are not willing to have continuous monitoring (in which case, the system is not as helpful for your dept. as it could be).

On the couple of occassions where the continuous monitoring system had some type of failure, we immediately placed temp. charts on all of our equipment.

Brenda Hutson

Our facility is going to a centralized, hospital wide temperature monitoring system. We have had virtually NO training, so I am not sure of all the details on how it works. Currently we have the temperature wheels on all the equipment and manually take the temps at midnight. Obviously, all equipment is alarmed for out of temp and they are on a separate alarm board that also rings the operator.

When the new system (Docutemp) is final implemented, they state that our wheels can go away. However, they only want to record the temps every 4 hours, because any more often then that seems to use up the batteries too fast. The equipment will still be on our current alarm board and the individual equipment alarm. For some reason, not having continuous monitoring makes me very uncomfortable.

I realize that AABB and CAP standards state that temps must be taken every 4 hours if not continuously monitored. Do you think this new system is an acceptable alternative? It just makes me kind of nervous.

In researching and recently installing our system I definitely think if it is not managed well by someone that understands the needs it will not work as intended. Ours is plugged in which means we get an alert if someone flips a breaker with a floor polisher on the same circuit--before the temperatures go out of range. There is some hassle factor to plugging them in but it gives an extra layer of failure protection. Ours will also alert us if it fails to get data etc. but it has to be set up right and notify the right people in a way that they are going to notice. We had expected to use it with some pagers but learned too late that it wouldn't work with our pager system because it is internally managed and doesn't work on a phone carrier like AT&T etc. We have our own towers around the area. There are many questions to ask and there will still be ways it works that you didn't think of. One system I heard of also has a wireless process for tracking equipment with RFID tags attached. Might be good to install one wireless network that will do multiple hospital tasks. Generally, we are happy with many of the features of ours.

Could you tell me what type of fluid you immerse the sensors in? We are moving to a new hospital with a centralized monitoring system and have to outfit all our refrigerators. We currently use 10% glycerol in the blood bank.

The refrigerated and freezer probes are in a 50% glycerol solution. Room temp is just air temperature as it also measures humidity.

There's a certain percentage of glycerol above which the freezing point actually goes up again. I googled it and found a nice list but I don't have it here.

Freezers can use antifreeze or 100% ethanol.

What a terrible waste of 100% ethanol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Only if it tastes like bourbon.

I'm a technology guy. And, for anyone who hasn't taken the plunge or who has and have had disappointing results over the past few years with their Temperature monitoring system, you should really take a look at the SensoScientific Brand.

www.Sensoscientific.com

They have 2 system options: 900Mhz and a New WIFI introduction.

Really cool advantages to this technology is that:

• You Don't have do deal with using, buying, providing, or maintaining a Server or Software!
  
• You will not have ugly wires and probe cables hanging off of your nice refrigerators because their entire wireless Transmitter goes inside your Refrigerator without drilling holes, etc.
  
• Your Notifications, Alarms, and documentation can all be accessed from ANY web-enabled device (Iphone, Ipad, personal Laptop, etc.) No need for dedicated Control station equipment.
  
• 100% web-based access to your information using your own Hospital Network Intranet.
  

Give them a glance. www.Sensoscientific.com

We are installing Oceasoft (Cobalt), They have probed sensor, can be dipped in glycerol-water but wired to data loggers, recording temp every 15 minutes. The date transfer from data loggers is wireless to a server computer, may send email and SMS and has a wireless hooter. We included Refs, Freezer, platelet incubators and room temp/humidity.

New experience, not yet completely installed. We will change four hourly readings to daily one reading. Is it required daily one reading?

We will set a 1 C acceptable variation between two systems and have set alarms/hooter at 1.5, 5.5 (Refs), -25 (freezers) and 20,24 for incubators.

Please Comment

I shall share my experience after a couple of months.

We have computer pop-ups for alerts sent to selected PCs. This works well in the lab where computers are shared by several users so emails won't come up. There are details to work out so it does the job.

Sensors should be able to keep collecting data even if they can't send it to the system temporarily.

For web-based, be sure of your backup system if your intranet goes down or you lose your connection to the internet somehow (especially in a disaster when the last thing you want to worry about is that you also have to go back to manual temperature monitoring and don't have a plan.) Some of this applies to server based also. You just have to learn about the system and find the big failure risks so you have a plan to avoid or remediate them.

Oceasoft data loggers has capacity for storing data for 3 months, each instrument has a data logger with unique serial number, if serve or wireless, net connection is down, the data from loggers is transferred as soon as the system is available. The thing I donot like till now are probes that connected to data loggers by wires, not wireless transmitters. On start of complete system I may know other things.

We currently us the Amega monitoring system: http://www.amegascientific.com/ and though currently not available, they are planning to release an app in 2012 for use with smart phones and are already using green technology (solar transmittors).

I do like what SensoScientific offers as well.

Are you saying (when you say they only want to record the temp. every 4 hours), that this centralized system would not "detect" an out-of-range temperature and alarm? I would assume not, as that would kind of defeat the purpose of a centralized system. I think it is saying just that; that it will just "document" the temp. every 4 hours. Provided it will always detect your alarm set-points (which should be at least 0.5 above the lowest acceptable temp. and 0.5 below the highest acceptable temp.), and alarm (which in our case, is an automated phone call from the system, alerting us), I think you are ok. We do not use the temp. charts except the couple of instances where there was a problem with the centralized system itself; then our protocol is to immediately place charts on our equipment.

Brenda Hutson, CLS(ASCP)SBB

Our facility is going to a centralized, hospital wide temperature monitoring system. We have had virtually NO training, so I am not sure of all the details on how it works. Currently we have the temperature wheels on all the equipment and manually take the temps at midnight. Obviously, all equipment is alarmed for out of temp and they are on a separate alarm board that also rings the operator.

When the new system (Docutemp) is final implemented, they state that our wheels can go away. However, they only want to record the temps every 4 hours, because any more often then that seems to use up the batteries too fast. The equipment will still be on our current alarm board and the individual equipment alarm. For some reason, not having continuous monitoring makes me very uncomfortable.

I realize that AABB and CAP standards state that temps must be taken every 4 hours if not continuously monitored. Do you think this new system is an acceptable alternative? It just makes me kind of nervous.

It'd be really tough to test alarms if it took 4 hrs for them to go off!

The alarms we check daily, are the unit's own integrated alarm. The centralized system is checked and calibrated by the company. Both probes (refrigerator/freezer internal probes) and centralized system probes, are suspended in the same liquid. If the unit's alarm was sounding but not the centralized system, we would know there was a problem.

And I don't believe it isn't that the centralized system is not monitoring temps. except for once every 4 hours; but rather that it just documents that temp. (even if within acceptable limits) every 4 hours; unless it reaches one of the alarm set-points inbetween that 4 hour time-frame; then it alarms and takes temps for as long as it takes to get back into the acceptable temperature range.

Brenda Hutson

It'd be really tough to test alarms if it took 4 hrs for them to go off!

Our go live date was supposed to be 1/1/11. As of this moment, all that has happened in the probes have been installed. It appears that the hospital has wasted a great amount of money for a system that doesn't work how we would like.

We had to retain our circular charts for our liquid nitrogen freezers because the system we got (Isensix) wires directly into the freezer controller rather than having its own temp probe. Therefore it only senses the equipment is in alarm condition, but not why. We kept the charts for the other equipment as well just for conformity. We could probably do away with the charts for refrigerator and incubator since our sensors are set to do temps about every 30 secs. Batteries arent a problem since they are user-replaceable AA's in the sensors and you get low battery warning when they are going. Had it about 2 years now and have only replaced one set. Just our experience with one system -)