The CDC continues to push for tighter guidelines around proper vaccine storage and handling. The vaccine cold-chain is crucial in ensuring vaccine safety and efficacy. Healthcare organizations storing and administering vaccines play an important role in maintaining the cold-chain.
Proper vaccine storage plays a major role in preventing and eradicating vaccine preventable diseases. If vaccines are stored incorrectly, this can result in an inadequate immune response in patients leading to poor protection against disease and the need for re-vaccination (if the provider was lucky enough to realize the vaccine was stored incorrectly).
If the improper storage conditions are not identified and the patient is not re-vaccinated, the patient could remain at risk unknowingly. These issues can cause patients to lose confidence in vaccines and providers.
Moreover, many providers have suffered significant financial loss due to wasted vaccines amounting in thousands of dollars. A single refrigerator storing vaccines could be worth anywhere from $2,000 - $50,000 depending on the size of the unit and the amount of vaccines being stored. If that unit was to fail, the provider would be required to contact the vaccine manufacturers one by one to see if stability data is available for out of range storage temperatures. If stability of the vaccine is deemed lost due to improper storage, that waste hits the bottom line.
For this reason, healthcare providers are starting to move away from recording temperatures twice per day and towards continuous monitoring of cold storage temperatures. This allows providers to document exactly how long the vaccines were stored out of range. To do so, many facilities are investing in continuous temperature monitoring solutions, which are bringing many refrigeration issues to the surface that providers never knew existed.
You can find more detailed information on vaccine storage in our latest eBook. The eBook highlights what you can do to ensure that your cold storage meets medical-grade requirements and will protect your valuable vaccines.
