Clinical Temperature Data Monitoring and Alerting in Remote Regions

Authors

• B Moyer
• K Pomeroy
• M Duvenhage
• C Whalen
• M Tartakovsky

Abstract

Clinical research of infectious diseases is often conducted in rural, tropical regions, with access to limited resources for supporting sub-zero preservation of clinical blood, tissue and chemical compounds. The freezers, refrigerators and incubators often lack stable power required to keep them operational twenty-four hours a day. Implementing a reliable alerting and monitoring system in such a volatile environment is challenging. The Office of Cyber Infrastructure and Computational Biology (OCICB) International Support Team draws on years of experience designing, configuring and managing data infrastructure alongside clinical data to provide a Clinical Environmental Monitoring (CEM) system in their international sites . The CEM system utilizes low powered systems on battery backups leveraging modern means of communication to notify an emergency response team of temperature excursions. This system is also qualified to capture clinical trial data by implementing the requisite security features and validation that is mandatory of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as well as Good Clinical Practices (GCP). The success of the CEM system has prevented several disasters by alerting the proper respondents of temperature excursions thereby maintaining the integrity of various samples.

Scientific Focus Area: Research Support Services

This page was last updated on Friday, March 26, 2021