A clipboard on the fridge door
Your toxin and some skin products live in a medicine fridge. On the door is a clipboard with a temperature log: date, time, current, minimum, maximum, initials. Someone fills it in each morning they are in. On days the clinic is closed, it is blank.
One Monday you arrive to find the fridge door was not quite shut over the weekend, or the plug was knocked. The reading is out of range now, but you have no idea for how long, or whether it went out at all before you arrived. Deciding what to do with the stock inside is now a much harder question.
Why paper logs leave gaps
A paper log records moments, not the time in between. It depends on people, on thermometers being reset, and on someone reading the right number.
- Readings only on days someone is in, at one time of day.
- Min/max thermometers not reset, so readings carry over.
- No alert if the temperature changes between readings.
- Power cuts and door left ajar overnight go unnoticed.
- Logs in a folder that nobody reviews until an inspection.
What a gap in the record costs
| Situation | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Excursion discovered after the fact | Uncertainty about stock that may have been affected |
| Blank weekend entries | Gaps in the record an inspector will notice |
| Stock quarantined or discarded | Expensive product written off as a precaution |
| No alert during a power cut | Hours out of range before anyone knows |
| Paper logs lost or damaged | No evidence of monitoring at all |
What to do with stock after an excursion is a decision for your prescriber, supplier guidance and your own policy. Our part is making sure you know quickly, and exactly, what happened.
Continuous fridge monitoring
- A wireless temperature sensor in each medicine fridge, reading at short intervals day and night.
- Readings sent to a secure dashboard, with the acceptable range for each fridge set by you.
- Alerts by text and email to named people if a reading leaves range, with escalation to a second person if the first does not acknowledge it.
- Power and connection alerts, so a failed sensor or a power cut is noticed too.
- A daily record generated automatically, with staff able to add notes (cleaning, stock delivery, door opened for a long time).
- An excursion report for any out-of-range event: start, end, highest reading and who responded, ready for your prescriber or supplier.
Sensors are off-the-shelf devices from established suppliers. We choose ones with a documented way to get data out, connect them, and build the alerts and reports around your clinic.
After the sensors go in
If a fridge door is left open on Saturday night, someone knows within minutes, not on Monday. The record has no gaps, weekends included, and staff no longer have to remember the clipboard. When a question comes up about a batch, you can show exactly what temperature it was kept at.
Inspections become simpler: the record is complete and printable, rather than a folder with blanks.
There is also a quieter benefit. Staff who used to feel responsible for a clipboard reading on their way in now know the fridge is being watched all the time, and that an alert will reach someone if anything changes.
Which of these happen at your clinic?
- Fridge temperatures are logged by hand on paper.
- The log has gaps on weekends or days the clinic is closed.
- You have found a fridge out of range with no idea for how long.
- Nobody would be alerted during a power cut overnight.
- Logs are only reviewed when an inspection is due.