Confronted with new workplace environmental, health, and safety (EHS) guidelines, healthcare facility managers can leverage remote temperature monitoring to ensure that operations remain open and safe.
Here’s how automated systems can track, capture, and provide precision information on key assets and critical workspaces while meeting today’s workplace safety recommendations.
Environmental Monitoring and Distancing Guidelines
The current healthcare climate combines heightened demand for patient care with increased safety measures that can be challenging for any facility operations. The need to decrease staff density or create restricted access areas can strain facility monitoring activities that rely on manual checks and data logging. Fortunately, there are automated solutions that can alleviate the stress of environmental monitoring and provide reliable EHS solutions.
Hospitals, labs, and other medical service facilities are set up to receive, store, and distribute medications in dedicated areas. Now, additional ICU, critical care, isolation rooms, and even pop-up outdoor screening and vaccination centers add to the protocols and increase the scope of on-site monitoring of environmental conditions.
Automated monitoring systems such as Primex OneVue allow facility managers and relevant staff to navigate these changes while ensuring the integrity of medications, vaccines, as well as the safety of personnel, patients, and visitors.
Temperature Assurance Where and When You Need It
For clinical teams charged with keeping key assets properly stored, the importance of temperature monitoring is already a priority. With the additional challenges created by COVID-19, the ability to monitor and assess temperature settings remotely is becoming a highly valuable solution.
The CDC and OSHA guidelines for workplace safety outline specific risk factors related to the current pandemic and consistently point to reduced person-to-person contact as a key safety measure. In order to meet these recommendations, facilities can look to a remote temperature monitoring system to reduce unnecessary exposure, such as nonessential personnel passing an isolation room or in high-density areas.
Primex OneVue Sense provides a solution that can help remotely monitor environmental conditions of laboratory and healthcare settings with temperature and humidity sensors. The portable sensors are easy to install for medical storage units (including refrigerators) and can alert staff to temperature variances and capture the data for on-demand reporting through the OneVue Monitor dashboard. The sensor options provide reliable, highly accurate data with calibrated probes and thermobuffers that simulate the actual temperature of refrigerated assets and minimize false sensor readings from minor fluctuations. The Monitor system eliminates the need to manually record data and allows you to confirm the integrity of controlled areas, freeing up caregiver bandwidth to spend more time with patients.
Using Monitor on a web browser, this data can then be accessed anywhere, anytime, and by anyone who may need access to it. This allows you to both reduce the number of staff required to be present to monitor sensitive assets and to more easily monitor assets during the off-hours of your facility — including nights, weekends, and more. This allows both caregiving staff and facility managers to rest easy knowing that medication, biohazards, and more will not fall out of compliance requirements by alerting staff to the need for a physical check-in.
Managing Personnel Traffic in Restricted Access Areas
New distancing protocols and limited traffic within restricted areas are central in today’s EHS management. Monitoring access to restricted areas can also be done remotely with OneVue Sense Contact Closure Sensors. These small, reliable devices use magnetic strips connected to a monitor that can measure and record the opening and closing of the contacts. They are easy to install on doors, cabinets, and refrigeration units. When used as part of the OneVue Monitor software, the sensors can reduce on-site personnel without compromising assurance.
Meeting Temperature Monitoring Challenges With Confidence
All of Primex OneVue sensors meet the compliance guidelines set by the CDC, and other governing bodies. OneVue sensors can be easily installed and moved, and offer multiple power options including battery, AC, and some with Power over Ethernet (POE) making them an ideal solution for changing workplace protocols. With Primex OneVue, maintaining EHS guidelines and meeting compliance standards can be done accurately through remote precision temperature monitoring and comprehensive documentation.
References
Risk Management: Keeping Diseases Out of Healthcare Facilities