When operating a busy pharmacy, the last thing you want to hear when you open the doors in the morning is your pharmacy refrigerator in alarm.  Many of our early morning enquiries are from pharmacies seeking urgent assistance with their vaccine refrigerator in alarm.  Unfortunately, in most cases, the refrigerator failed at some point during the night and no one was notified.  There is often no way of knowing exactly when the cold chain breach occurred and it results in a total stock loss.  The down time, loss of sales and cost of the stock loss, can significantly impact on the business, particularly leading into flu season when the vaccine refrigerators are filled to capacity. The good news is that there are easy solutions to avoid this problem.

We at CSK Group pride ourselves on reducing our customers’ stock loss and these are our 5 top tips:

1) Monitor 24 hours a day

Monitoring your refrigerator 24 hours a day hasn’t been easier or more cost effective. With CSK Group’s automatic phone dialler, you will be notified of any equipment failure and allow you to move your stock to a safe location. See our articles on equipment monitors for more information.

2) Service and Maintenance

Organising CSK Group to service your vaccine refrigerator every 6 months will significantly reduce the chances of failure.  The benefits don’t stop there: you will also increase the usable life of your refrigerator and also in many cases reduce running costs.

3) Overloading leads to failure

Don’t overload your pharmacy refrigerator. All too often we are called to a failing refrigerator and it’s due to overloading and blocked airflow. This can cause irregular temperatures throughout the product and this can result in refrigerator ice ups.

4) Plan B

All mechanical equipment can fail at some point so having a plan B is a must. Knowing where and what you will do with a refrigerator full of vaccines will give you and your staff peace of mind.

5) Log your temperatures

Use a data logger to monitor the temperature so you know exactly how long the cold chain breach occurred – sometimes a very brief breach is ok, but it’s important to know how long it has been.  CSK has many cost-effective solutions for your existing refrigerators or if you have a new generation Pinnacle Pharmacy Refrigerator this feature is built in!

With these 5 tips you will be sure to have minimal stock loss. If you want further information, please contact our friendly staff.