Abstract
Objectives
Evaluate different non-continuous temperature-monitoring practices for detection of out-of-range temperatures (above or below the recommended temperature range of 2–8 °C for refrigeration units), which are called excursions, within vaccine storage units.
Methods
Simulations based on temperature data collected by 243 digital data loggers operated in vaccine storage units at health-care providers who participated in a CDC-sponsored continuous temperature monitoring pilot project, from 2012 to 2015. In the primary analysis, we evaluate: (1) twice-daily current temperature readings without minimum and maximum readings (min/max), (2) twice-daily current temperature readings with once-daily min/max, and (3) twice-daily current temperature readings with twice-daily min/max.
Results
Recording current temperature twice daily without min/max resulted in the detection of 4.8—6.4% of the total number of temperature excursions. When min/max readings were introduced, the percentage of detected temperature excursions increased to 27.8—96.6% with once-daily min/max and to 34.8—96.7% with twice-daily min/max.
Conclusions
Including min/max readings improves the ability of a temperature monitoring practice to detect temperature excursions. No combination of the non-continuous temperature monitoring practices were able to consistently detect all simulated temperature excursions.
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Notes
In practice, a temperature monitoring device has a ‘reset’ button that can reset min/max temperature reading. Each time the min/max temperatures are recorded, the ‘reset’ button is pushed, and the previous reading of the min/max temperature is deleted so that new values are recorded for the next min/max temperature reading.
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Leidner, A.J., Lee, C.E., Tippins, A. et al. Evaluation of non-continuous temperature-monitoring practices for vaccine storage units: a Monte Carlo simulation study. J Public Health (Berl.) 29, 1253–1260 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01207-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01207-0