ISO Calibrated Temperature Monitoring Alarm System

Descriptions

The service is for the supply, delivery, installation, and commissioning of a UKAS accredited ISO 17025 calibrated temperature monitoring alarm system at our Hull University Teaching Hospital NHS Trust (HUTH) & Castle Hill Hospital (CHH) sites.

The system and probes must be suitable for monitoring laboratory equipment and areas including but not limited to blood storage units, fridges, freezers, platelet incubators, CO2/non-CO2 incubators, ovens, hot blocks, water baths, walk in cold/hot rooms, cupboards, shelves, roll cages and store rooms/warehousing. The current temperature range monitored is -80°C to +70°C. Future development of our research facility may require monitoring as low as -150c

The system must monitor, record and store temperatures in degrees Celsius °C to a minimum of one decimal place.

The system must meet UKAS standards and to provide UKAS ISO 17025 accredited accuracy of readings within 0.5 °C including measurement of uncertainty for blood storage units and 1.0°C including MOU for all other units.

The system must be able to record temperatures in real-time and provide proactive alarms with no delay or with pre-set delays as required.

As a minimum, the system must record and store temperatures at 2-minute intervals for all Transfusion units and transmit data at 2-minute intervals regardless of the equipment location. For all other unit's temperatures must be recorded and stored at a minimum of 15-minute intervals and data transmitted every 15-minutes. Continuous sampling of all temperatures between recorded intervals is required to ensure real-time monitoring with no delay alarm activation.

The system must utilise RF wireless and/or wired technology compatible with existing NHS infrastructure. The supplier must perform a network analysis to ensure the Trust infrastructure is compliant with the proposed system. The IT infrastructure have suggested another option maybe for the supplier to provide a network for the equipment if it's not RF. The current advice from the trust networking team is to avoid 2.4G and 5G frequency as this will affect the running of other systems already existing within the trust.

The supplier must provide a security statement to HUTH IT for review; including all access requirements to the system and the Trusts network

The system must be able to snooze alarms for the automatic repetition of notifications after actions are taken. All alarm notifications must have an auditable system of acknowledgment by the recipient. Alarm notifications must be proactive and repeat until acknowledged by the recipient (answerphone messages are not sufficient)

The system must allow for notes to be entered and edited against alarms or temperature readings for the purpose of investigation, such as audit trails

Proactive alarm notification methods must be provided; including but not limited to telephone calls

The system must have a robust feature to recover recorded data in network/communication loss scenarios.

The system must not interfere with the operation of secondary alarms systems and auto diallers that are already in place on blood storage units and research freezers. These utilise hardwired inputs/outputs on the individual storage units.

The system and installation must not invalidate any warranties provided by the monitored equipment manufacturers.

The system must be capable of being upgraded/future-proofed or expanded across multiple sites with minimum disruption as may be required to be able to meet any changes and development in legislation and/or best practice.

The system must allow users a single login to view unit's status at any location or site and provide filtering to restrict the view to selected units only.

The system must be accessible by users within all areas of Pathology at each laboratory department and site.

The system must have a backup power supply in the event of mains power interruption.

The system must be compatible with and maintain connectivity during a schedule of monthly Trust power outages for emergency generator tests.

The system must always be accessible displaying real-time readings or readings at pre-set intervals where programmed.

It would be preferable for the system to provide a permanent real-time status display screen installed in the Transfusion lab at Hull Royal Infirmary. This should be wall mountable and of a size suitable to view within the work areas of the Transfusion laboratory. The location for this would be withing the Hull transfusion department.

The system must be able to allow for the movement and repositioning of units monitored in non-static laboratory areas.

The system must allow for the movement of units during scheduled cleaning housekeeping and maintenance.

The system must not interfere with the process of annual mapping of blood storage units and research freezers during use.

The system must be able to host multiple user accounts with varying level of access determined by system administrators.

The system must be able to lock out user access when required by administrators

User passwords must not be stored in plaintext anywhere on the system and a specified format of password should be available

The system must include a searchable permanent audit trail of all system and users' events including but not limited to; alarm acknowledgment, alarm deactivation and reprogramming of any settings. The audit trail must be username and time/date stamped.

The system must be able to provide an electronic means of keeping blood cold chain audit trail records for at least 30 years in compliance with legislative requirements.

The system must perform and record on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and adjust itself for UK British Summer-Time (BST) and British Winter-Time (BWT) (sometimes called Daylight Saving Time).

The system must have a process of archiving data in a readable format onto another storage solution.

The system must provide notification options via user login, email or auto dialler systems compatible with the NHS communications infrastructure.

The system must be accessible by nominated staff working remotely offsite.

There must be a method of visually reading UKAS accredited temperatures if the system is inaccessible for any reason. This could be provided by secondary equipment but not via displays on equipment being monitored.

All equipment forming the system including probe leads must be safely secured to walls and or monitored equipment. Please note that equipment cannot be drilled for the purpose of securing. Fixings to walls must be approved by the Trust Estates, PFI management team (where applicable) and Pathology

All power supplies, network points, accessories, utilities and any small works required must be identified in the quotation.