Missouri hospital aims for compliance with cooling regulations
Accreditation Connection, April 2, 2007
CoxHealth Hospital in Springfield, MO, is hoping that its new temperature tracking devices will help make the facility compliant with The Joint Commission's proper and safe storage of medicines standard, reports The Springfield News-Leader.
The hospital was downgraded to provisional accreditation in May 2006 for failing to track and record the temperature of chilled medicines. Surveyors found that CoxHealth recorded temperatures only 94% of the time. The hospital improved recording immediately through a manual system, but it got costly by requiring nearly 50,000 checks a year, according to the News-Leader.
The new system will electronically track and record the temperatures every minute of every day in 136 refrigerators on patient care units that store drugs such as insulin and non-narcotics.
The system, produced by Sensatronics cost the hospital at least $25,000, but hospital administrators say they had been paying more than $30,000 a year in manual check costs.
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