Temperature-Controlled Pharmaceutical Transport—How To Set It Up For Success
If you manage a pharmacy and plan to handle the shipment of prescription medication in-house, you must set up temperature-controlled pharmaceutical transport. You can succeed and subsequently protect medication that must remain at specific temperatures if you perform the following actions.
Find Out What Temperatures Are Acceptable
The purpose behind temperature-controlled pharmaceutical transport is to keep medications in the proper temperature range. To succeed and protect medication, find out the exact temperature range that each medication must stay around. The medications may have the same temperature range or you might need to achieve separate temperature zones to accommodate medications with different temperature requirements.
If you sort these details out before transport, you can avoid altering the medications' properties and potency. Eventually, your pharmacy will build a solid reputation for having medications that are flawless and work how they're supposed to.
Use Telematics That Track the Fleet in Real-Time
When shipping something as important as prescription medications, you always want to know where your temperature-controlled fleet is. It's the best way to ensure transport happens in an effective and compliant manner. You just need to use a telematics solution that gives real-time data on your fleet's location.
Your fleet will have GPS systems that automatically send location information to the telematics solution. Thus, there will never be a time when you don't know where your fleet is and how long shipping will take. If there's a logistics problem, the telematics solution will provide alerts and help you respond accordingly before your pharmacy's medications are negatively affected.
Audit Your Transport Practices Routinely
Even if you think you have temperature-controlled pharmaceutical transport refined, it's still a good idea to audit your practices. You can then ensure there are no regulatory or safety issues you must correct.
You can hire an independent company to conduct audits on your transport practices too, so that you get objective assessments and relevant results that ultimately help you improve shipping operations if there are issues.
Once you find the right auditor, have them perform transport assessments every couple of months. Any problem, such as an improper temperature range, will be highlighted in reports. You can then take the right corrective actions after you're clear on what problems are present.
If your pharmacy is about to take over transport for prescription medication, set up exemplary temperature-controlled shipping operations in the beginning. If you make smart decisions early on, there won't be significant transport problems that you have to fix later on.