Keeping veterinary drugs safe during transportation

Transporting medicines outside veterinary practices risks exposing both chilled and ambient temperature controlled drugs to extremes of temperature which can rapidly reduce their efficacy. For vets who often transport quantities of medicines in cars and other vehicles, ensuring these are kept in prime condition and can be returned safely to stock is a difficult task.

Time consuming data loggers

Standard solutions which involve recording temperature on data loggers are time-consuming and reliant on a member of staff having access to the vehicles or storage containers regularly. To overcome the problem, monitoring specialists Remote Monitoring Ltd have developed a new and flexible solution developed to match individual requirements.

The new system is based on the company’s tried and tested innovative fridge monitoring system, and gives the user two options. The first involves placing a node to log temperatures in the vehicle or remote location, which collects readings at regular intervals throughout the day.

Automatic uploading to the cloud

These readings then upload automatically to the cloud at the end of the day or when the vehicle returns to the surgery, alerting users if the medicines have been out of the required temperature range. Data can then be downloaded for reporting in line with RCVS compliance. This option is ideal for users who are regularly working from their veterinary surgery.

Real-time in-transit monitoring

For those working outside their surgeries for prolonged periods, or requiring more detailed temperature monitoring, the second option is a ‘real-time’ in-transit mobile temperature monitoring solution, involving a battery-powered base station and temperature monitoring nodes. Subject to cellular coverage (now over 95% of the UK landmass) this product uploads temperature storage data regularly over each 24 hour period and will alert in real time if drugs are being stored at incorrect temperatures.

The RemoteM in transit system offers significant benefits. As well as ease of use, reduced administrative requirements and reporting compliance, the system ensures that medicines which may have been stored temporarily in remote locations are monitored accurately, reducing the risk of reduced clinical efficacy.

Used in combination with the fridge monitoring solution in surgeries, users benefit from a complete and accurate picture of the storage of medicines, wherever it is and wherever they are.