Alternatives Technologies Pharma (ATP) Installs Monitoring System for Local Hospital in Quebec


Montreal, QB - alternativestech.com - ATP, a leader in cold chain verification management solutions, recently fitted Hôpital Pierre-Le Gardeur in Quebec with an automated verification system.

During the spring of 2011, Hôpital Pierre-Le Gardeur came to ATP looking for a centralized temperature monitoring system that would link their main hospital to their eight surrounding clinics. These clinics usually store vaccines in one or two fridges.

"Overall, they were looking to improve their process and be more efficient by having an automated system," commented Benoit Chedhomme, ATP Sales Manger "Previously, temperatures were recorded manually twice a day but it was unclear what was happening during times in between the recordings." Furthermore, they needed to comply with new ISO 17189 regulations.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) was officially issued with ATP being awarded the contract.

In the beginning it was difficult to determine whether hard wired installation using Ethernet cabling or wireless would be the better solutions. In the end, a combination of both solutions were installed based on the needs of the specific site. The installation of the Mirador(TM) real time monitoring system (RTM) was conducted in phases starting in September 2011.

Mirador(TM) works on the 2,4Mhz range. This is the same frequency as a typical router. However, the system is not blocked on one specific channel but can be everywhere between 2405 and 2480MhZ.

The project was completed in three phases.

Phase 1 started with a limited amount of equipment to be monitored in the hospital. Also all surrounding clinics were done during this phase in order to have all data centralized collection. The reader in each clinic was configured with the IP address of the central server in the hospital.

Data loggers were installed in fridges that needed to stay between 2 degrees - 8 degrees C and freezers that maintained temperatures as low as -40 degrees C. Monitors were added for the blood labs to also display the temperature in real time. A single display is now used to show staff with equipment name, a date/time and a temperature.
To facilitate the location of equipment, a floor plan is located on the main viewing page to provide the exact location of the equipment in case of alarm.

If the temperature leaves the specified range, a notification is sent to a locally designated supervisor to access the alarm condition such as a door being left open.

"Alarms can be set to cascade as well as by department, equipment, time, or type of alarm. We partnered with the departments in order to make sure that the correct person receives the alarm and in the order needed," Chedhomme said.

Phase 2 scaled additional equipment installed in the main hospitals including fridges, freezers and incubators. Temperatures dip as low as -80 degrees C. A total of 36 fridges and 2 freezers were included. Extra displays were added at strategic locations in each department including; laboratory, chirurgic, pharmacy and oncology.

Phase 3 will include approximately 35 additional pieces of equipment.

Once phase 3 is complete, the Mirador(TM) system will be monitoring 80-90 pieces of equipment in the main hospital in addition to the 8 clinics.

"This has proven to be a very cost effective approach for hospitals to achieve compliance" Chedhomme said. "Similar installations have also been installed in Granby and Drummondville."

About Alternative Technology Pharma [http://alternativestech.com/]

ATP. is a leading provider of cold chain compliance solutions that strives to enable life science partners and healthcare organizations assurance in protecting the integrity of their sensitive products. ATP also helps companies comply with increasingly stringent regulations, by tracking and monitoring assets across the supply chain.

About The TCP Family of Companies [www.tcpreliable.com]

The TCP Family of Companies is a complete packaging integrity solutions provider who services the life science industries. The TCP Family consists of Cryopak, the leading manufacturer of cold chain related products DDL, the leader in package, product and material testing validation for medical device and biopharmaceutical industries and ATP, the leaders in temperature monitoring and cold chain compliance solutions. The TCP family handles your packaging needs with one paramount goal: getting your product to market on time while maintaining the integrity of your products.

Alternatives Technologie

a TCP Reliable Company

William Hingle

Director of Marketing

whingle@tcpreliable.com

732.346.9200 ext. 104

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