Home » Vaccine Education » Remote Vaccine Temperature Monitoring Devices

Remote Vaccine Temperature Monitoring Devices

With the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines, a lot of people are learning about an issue that pediatricians and other health care providers have been dealing with for a very long time – vaccines have to be stored at very specific temperatures.

What happens if they aren’t, if a vaccine gets too hot or too cold?

Then that vaccine likely won’t work as well or might not work at all.

Remote Vaccine Temperature Monitoring Devices

That’s why most people store their vaccines in pharmaceutical-grade vaccine refrigerators and freezers and use continuous monitoring and recording devices to make sure they stay at recommended temperatures.

These vaccine temperature monitoring devices will alert you to the slightest temperature fluctuations so that you can fix any small problems before they become bigger and damage your vaccines.

Did someone leave the vaccine refrigerator door open?

Is your vaccine freezer starting to fail?

Did someone accidentally unplug your vaccine refrigerator?

In any of these scenarios, you would rather know when the temperature rises a degree than come back a few hours later and find that your vaccines are ruined, right?

But what happens if no one is in the office? Who’s going to hear the alert from your vaccine temperature monitoring device then?

Remote Vaccine Temperature Monitoring Devices

That’s right, no one…

That’s why, to be safe, you should have a remote vaccine temperature monitoring device!

These devices can send you an email or text if there is a problem, so that you can get an alert even if you are at home, at the gym, watching your kids play soccer, or even if you are sleeping.

Are you going to know if the temperature on your vaccine freezer or refrigerator is out of range? If you get WiFi alerts, what happens if the power goes out?
Are you going to know if the temperature on your vaccine freezer or refrigerator is out of range? If you get WiFi alerts, what happens if the power goes out?

So why doesn’t everyone have one of these remote vaccine temperature monitoring devices keeping their vaccines safe?

It’s probably a combination of the fact that they aren’t necessarily cheap, seem complicated to install, and most folks probably think that they will never need them.

After all, how often do refrigerators and freezers break down? And how often does the power go out for extended periods of time?

How often do natural disasters leave folks without power for extended periods of time?

Unfortunately, a remote vaccine temperature monitoring device won't help you if your office gets hit by a tornado, but it will help in many other situations.
Unfortunately, a remote vaccine temperature monitoring device won’t help you if your office gets hit by a tornado, but it will help in many other situations.

Tragically, these things happen more often than any of us would like to think about, including prolonged outages from hurricanes, fires, and severe winter weather, etc.

So in addition to using a generator that will last for more than a few days and a vaccine refrigerator and freezer than can hold their temperatures without power for an extended time, to help keep your vaccines safe, you should consider using a remote vaccine monitoring system like the:

There are many others too, including some with sensors for ultra-cold temperatures, like that are required for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.

How do you pick a remote vaccine monitoring system?

It might help to check with your state Vaccines for Children program to see if they have a recommendation. You might even be able to get a remote vaccine temperature monitoring system that can be used as your primary data logger.

What else?

You want real time automatic text or e-mail alerts when temperature alarms are triggered, but you don’t want to be bothered by false alarms. Do you want an alert every time the internet or power is out for 5 seconds or 5 minutes?

And be sure that the one you use includes a calibrated probe that is buffered in glycol or glass beads.

The recommendation for a calibrated probe is why you shouldn’t use many of the less expensive options that are marketed for other uses, like:

  • the Temp Stick – an all-in-one sensor
  • ThermoPro TP50 Digital Hygrometer Indoor Thermometer – this is a room thermometer
  • La Crosse Alerts Temperature Monitor & Alert Kit – includes a dry probe
  • ORIA Refrigerator Thermometer – no calibrated probe

You might think you are saving money with these cheap monitors, but if they don’t keep your vaccines safe, in the long run, you are going to end up losing your vaccines and a lot of money.

More on Vaccine Storage and Safety

1 thought on “Remote Vaccine Temperature Monitoring Devices”

  1. Pingback: The New Pfizer COVID Vaccine Storage Guidelines - VAXOPEDIA

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: