Hospital at Home programs - how to monitor temperatures out in the field?

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Does anyone have any experience with a Hospital at Home type program where RNs are visiting homes and performing POC testing?  I am specifically looking for how machines and reagents that are required to be kept at room temperature are monitored in accordance with CAP standards if those items are being transported in cars and exposed to summer/winter weather for up to 2 hours at any given time.

I tried a few cooler studies so far and all have failed within the first 1-2 hours with 3 types of cooler.  Any advice is GREATLY appreciated!

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We are just in the process of discussing POC with the Hospital at Home program. I would think this would be similar to a Home Health type setting. With our Home Health, we don't require them to monitor temps of reagents that are "in use" as they are constantly moving around. I think what would be more important is that there is temp monitoring where the bulk of the reagents are stored for long periods. Most devices also do not complete testing once its outside the acceptable range of the device or they give a temp error after testing and no result is displayed.

Yes, we have the HaH program at our facility.  They store the reagents/supplies in the Main Lab, they take out on their patient cases as needed.  Main Lab temperature and humidity is monitored for those reagents.  We also have another program called vAcute where paramedics & EMT's go out to patient homes for evaluation and they have a car refrigerator that plugs in and stays on, they monitor the temp on that.  They leave the car running while in the patient home (locked of course), so the refrigerator is not off until they come back at the end of the day. They then take all supplies inside to their area from the car.

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Christina Schleich
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