Those who are using central temperature monitoring(CTM) as their primary method to monitor blood bank storage equipments, I have few questions : 

1) Do you still use charts?

2) Do you take daily recording? 

3) If you take manual recording, which readings?

4) How do you monitor your CTM?

5) What kind of reports do you print? 

6) Do you run into problem where you do not have readings and do not have charts?

Thank you in advance.

1) Do you still use charts? No

2) Do you take daily recording? No, the CTM monitors the temperatures consistently and daily prints the 4 hour readings.

3) If you take manual recording, which readings? We only take manual recording if the CTM is down, or if there is an alarm we will comment the internal thermometer reading.

4) How do you monitor your CTM? Check for functionality daily, it also has an annual PM.

5) What kind of reports do you print? The system automatically prints the previous days 4 hours recordings and any alarms w/ comments.

6) Do you run into problem where you do not have readings and do not have charts? No, if the system is down (which rarely happens) we perform manual temps readings.

Same as @pinktoptube.

Same minus the printing. Everything is backed up automatically.

1) Do you still use charts? No, we discontinued charts after several months of validation.

2) Do you take daily recording? The system captures temp readings about every 5 minutes, so we do not manually record any temps.

3) If you take manual recording, which readings? Not for any remotely monitored equipment.

4) How do you monitor your CTM? Each quarter we check function by setting off alarms and confirming we obtain alerts as expected. We also confirm that we receive daily temp reports.

5) What kind of reports do you print? Our CTM sends us Alerts on our BB computers if temp is at threshold; the CTM generates a report daily for the previous 24 hours with current, average, high, low and # of alerts. The reports is emailed to key staff and also written to a designated file. We note on a daily checklist that the report has been written to file. Manager reviews reports, signs electronically and saves to monthly file. at end of month, Manager copies the files to flash drove for backup to save for AABB required time.

6) Do you run into problem where you do not have readings and do not have charts? I the system is going to be down for maintenance we have a manual back up process in place. We also have a stash of temp charts that we could use if off line for > 4 hours or for troubleshooting. In our two years of CTM, we have not had any significant issues with temperature recordings. in fact the system is much more accurate that charts and our manual temp records as it eliminates the human error factor.

Those who are using central temperature monitoring(CTM) as their primary method to monitor blood bank storage equipments, I have few questions :

1) Do you still use charts?  Yes, as a backup.  We recently had the wireless temp monitoring (we use Mesa) go down for about 12 hours, so it's nice to show constant monitoring.  But most of the time, it's overkill.

2) Do you take daily recording? Yes.  We record digital reading, Mesa reading, and check that the chart reading, just to make sure they correlate.  We do not check thermometer temps in the equipment, but have thermometers in there for troubleshooting purposes in case we get a Mesa alarm.

3) If you take manual recording, which readings?  See above

4) How do you monitor your CTM?  Every morning a Blood Bank tech looks at the list of BB equipment and makes sure everything is "in the green".  Weekly we print the graphs from Mesa and staple our charts to it.  I really hate printing when we have an electronic system, but we had an inspector who really likes paper (ugh) and pointed out that we could change systems in the future and would not have access to previous data if we no longer have access to the software.  We also do quarterly alarm checks and annually we check our certified thermometer against each Mesa probe for accuracy.

5) What kind of reports do you print? Weekly graph showing that temps were in range for the entire week.

6) Do you run into problem where you do not have readings and do not have charts?  No.  That's why we still do the charts for when Mesa is down.

 

We are super happy we have this system in place.  It really works amazingly well and gives you a real sense of confidence that your blood and reagents are safe 24/7.

Thank you so much for all responses.

I love BB talk/Pathlabtalk.....

On ‎1‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 7:37 PM, Eagle Eye said:

Those who are using central temperature monitoring(CTM) as their primary method to monitor blood bank storage equipments, I have few questions : 

1) Do you still use charts? Yes

2) Do you take daily recording? Yes

3) If you take manual recording, which readings? Once/Day, check all NIST thermometers

4) How do you monitor your CTM? No, Engineering does that

5) What kind of reports do you print? Manual logs showing comparisons between charts, themometers, displays once/day. Also quarterly hot/cold checks of all monitors

6) Do you run into problem where you do not have readings and do not have charts? No - Manual recording every 4 hrs when something is not working

Thank you in advance.

 

We are getting ready to go to a central temp monitoring system. On our large Blood Bank refrigerator we have thermometers that we currently take temps for both the upper and lower areas of the refrigerator. Does your central monitoring record for both these areas of the refrigerator or do you have just one temp reading per refrigerator?

Our two door refrigerator has just one probe, but the walk-in refrigerator has two.

16 hours ago, Laurie Underwood said:

We are getting ready to go to a central temp monitoring system. On our large Blood Bank refrigerator we have thermometers that we currently take temps for both the upper and lower areas of the refrigerator. Does your central monitoring record for both these areas of the refrigerator or do you have just one temp reading per refrigerator?

We have Mesa Monitoring (formerly TempSys).  We have dual probes; one goes to the top shelf bottle, and the other goes to the bottom shelf bottles.

Thanks for your responses.

For those with a central temperature monitoring system, do you test the system by performing alarm activations?

We currently have a central temperature monitoring system and perform alarm activations on a quarterly basis.

I highly recommend doing this, there have been many times where we didn't know a sensor was malfunctioning until we tested it.

How often does everyone else test the system?

At my previous job we had a CTM with an outside agency monitoring it; we tested one piece of equipment daily by manually bringing the probe out of temp, and did a different piece of equipment every day. Their initial response was to call the blood bank first so we logged their response time on a form.

 

With all our storage locations each fridge, freezer, platelet rocker, etc had the sensor tested every four or five days if I remember correctly.

 

At my current facility we don't have a CTM, although I wish we did.

Edited January 28, 20169 yr by Teristella

11 hours ago, spavlis said:

11 hours ago, spavlis said:

For those with a central temperature monitoring system, do you test the system by performing alarm activations?

We currently have a central temperature monitoring system and perform alarm activations on a quarterly basis.

I highly recommend doing this, there have been many times where we didn't know a sensor was malfunctioning until we tested it.

How often does everyone else test the system?

For those with a central temperature monitoring system, do you test the system by performing alarm activations?

We currently have a central temperature monitoring system and perform alarm activations on a quarterly basis.

I highly recommend doing this, there have been many times where we didn't know a sensor was malfunctioning until we tested it.

How often does everyone else test the system?

Our probes are calibrated annually and we perform alarm activation quarterly using the CTM.

I am about ready to go live on the central temperature monitoring system. We will be doing annual NIST temperature verifications on all sensors and quarterly alarm checks. We plan to review the CTM temperatures daily and document that review. I am still unsure if the annual NIST certification is acceptable or do I have to correlate the digital thermometer to the CTM sensor readings more often. Any advice is appreciated.

19 minutes ago, DeeMc said:

I am about ready to go live on the central temperature monitoring system. We will be doing annual NIST temperature verifications on all sensors and quarterly alarm checks. We plan to review the CTM temperatures daily and document that review. I am still unsure if the annual NIST certification is acceptable or do I have to correlate the digital thermometer to the CTM sensor readings more often. Any advice is appreciated.

We perform a monthly temperature correlation to the probe, the internal temperature and the digital temperature.

We perform quarterly alarm checks, setting the alarms off by manually warming the probes one quarter and the other three times we use the system to activate the alarm.  We also compare the temperature reading to a NIST or NIST traceable temperature monitoring device at this time.  Also the vendor comes and performs a temperature calibration annually.   If the system has backup batteries it is also a good idea to periodically verify they still work.

We still use charts as a backup monitoring system.

The daily check is documented using the CTM and we also perform a daily comparison of the charts recorders to the CTM value.

We do not routinely print any reports out.  

1 hour ago, lph said:

We perform quarterly alarm checks, setting the alarms off by manually warming the probes one quarter and the other three times we use the system to activate the alarm.  We also compare the temperature reading to a NIST or NIST traceable temperature monitoring device at this time.  Also the vendor comes and performs a temperature calibration annually.   If the system has backup batteries it is also a good idea to periodically verify they still work.

We still use charts as a backup monitoring system.

The daily check is documented using the CTM and we also perform a daily comparison of the charts recorders to the CTM value.

We do not routinely print any reports out.  

lph

Just to clarify, are you saying your CTM is capable of activating alarms?

Unfortunately our CTM isn't capable of doing this and we do the alarm activation manually

Edited January 29, 20169 yr by spavlis

Thank you all for your comments concerning your CTM setup and processes.  We are looking at installing a CTM system at our facility.  The system has solid state probes that are NIST Traceable that may be in glycerol or w/o glycerol.  Are any of you still using glycerol with your temp probes?  Is there a requirement that indicates temp probes need to be in glycerol or is this a left over from our past experiences?  I have search for such a requirement but have not had any luck in my search.  If possible, please share reference if you have found Glycerol use is required. 

Here's the CAP Checklist iteration of what you're referring to:

 

TRM.42650 Monitored Temperature

The temperature of refrigerators is monitored in a manner that will mimic the temperature characteristics of a component stored in the device.
NOTE: For example, placement of the temperature sensor probe in liquid with heat transfer characteristics similar to blood, and a volume similar to the smallest units stored, is recommended, but other procedures are also acceptable. The correct placement for the temperature sensor is controversial. Some experts recommend leaving the sensor exposed to
air, some recommend enclosing it in liquid, and some recommend enclosing it in an aluminum block.

Yes, we dilute glycerol for our probe bottles.  We add a small amount of bleach so that they don't grow cooties (aka mold).

Our temp probes are in glycerol.

Is anyone not placing their CTM temperature probes in liquid for their blood refrigerator monitoring.  If so, how did you validate that the probe w/o liquid temp matches the temp within the blood bag?  Were you able to obtain information from the vender concerning the validation process that was performed.  Also are these CTM systems FDA Approved?

On ‎2‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 4:09 PM, DMR said:

Is anyone not placing their CTM temperature probes in liquid for their blood refrigerator monitoring.  If so, how did you validate that the probe w/o liquid temp matches the temp within the blood bag?  Were you able to obtain information from the vender concerning the validation process that was performed.  Also are these CTM systems FDA Approved?

They won't work very well without being in fluid (which I think is regulatory); as soon as you open the door, they will alarm as soon as they are exposed to external temp.