1) Dr. Steven Spilatro lost 15 years of critical research samples stored in an ultra-low freezer due to a power outage. The freezer did not have temperature monitoring or notifications to alert him of the problem. 2) A hospital lost $147,000 worth of vaccines and medications when power went out over a weekend at an off-site facility, and personnel did not discover the issue until Monday when temperatures had been unsuitable for an unknown period of time. 3) Kristi Oristian lost three years of irreplaceable cancer research mice samples valued at over $126,000 when an ultra-low freezer failed over a weekend. The existing alarm system was unreliable and did not properly notify staff in time

2. Temperature Data: The Underrated Superhero
Consider this common scenario: Your freezer has not been reaching the setpoint
as quickly as it should after the door has been opened. As you arrive to work on
Monday morning, the alarm is going off. How long has your freezer been down?
Are your irreplaceable research samples okay? The contents of your freezer
could have been protected if a monitoring system sent you immediate alarm
notifications and a periodic review of temperature data.
There are many different circumstances that can
leave your research samples or hospital medications
vulnerable.Equipment failures can set research back
by days, weeks, and even years. And then there are
accidents such as refrigerator and freezer doors being
left open, inadvertentlyexposing the contents inside
to unsuitable temperatures.
Worse yet, natural disasters and severe weather can
leavefacilities without power. What is the ideal way to
monitorequipment in a way that will not only notify you
in the event of a temperature excursion, but also give
you peaceof mind that the product inside is still okay?
Common Reasons for Spoiled Productor
Research Loss
Losing Power:
- Severe weather/natural disasters (produced 180,000
minutes of power outages in the USalone in 2015)
- Tripping a breaker
- Backup generator stops running
- Accidents:
- Equipment doors left open
- Equipment failure (refrigeration, fans, etc.)
- Building HVAC failure

3. Case One:
15 Years of Research Lost
Dr. Steven Spilatro obtained his bachelor’s degree from
Ohio Wesleyan University, his PhD at Indiana University,
began his post-doctorate at University of California in
Davis,and completed his degree at Michigan State
University. Spilatro continued his education by
completing a follow-uppost-doctorate degree at the
University of North Carolina where he specialized in
photosynthesis research.
Spilatro dedicated several years to his research
observing plant leaf storage proteins and the growth
hormone, methyl jasmonate. Due to being awarded a
United States National Science Foundation (NSF) grant,
Spilatro was able to further his research. This grant
authorized Spilatroto obtain instrumentation that
specifically supported the research of the lectin- related
protein. Unfortunately, oneweek during the summer,
the power went out for 12 to 18 hours, and his ultra-low
freezer did not have a temperaturemonitoring system
with notifications and was not backed up with a
generator.
June is the most common month for power outages.
Duringthe summer months, few people are around to
even noticea power outage in locked buildings. Spilatro
lost about 15 years of research and his NSF grant. All of
his critical mate- rial and years of research were lost,
and he was no longer able to fund research.
Unfortunately, landlines were king and few people had
cell phones at the time. Remote notification relied on
theend-user being at home to answer the phone or
having phone calls forwarded to facility staff or campus
security, who have other priorities to respond to.
“Back then, after that happened, we did buy a
monitoring system for the freezer … but it was never
that reliable,” Spilatro said. “… It is so much easier and
more practical now for people to get a phone message.
It would have taken meyears to reproduce everything
that I had, and I would highlysuggest that any person
with critical samples consider monitoring.”
“I would highly suggest that any
person with critical samples
consider monitoring.”
DR. SPILATRO, PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY AT MARIETTA COLLEGE

4. Case Two:
Hospital Loses US$ 147,000 in Medication
Marietta Memorial Health Systems (MHS) in Marietta,
Ohio,is continually growing and providing additional
health care across multiple locations. Shortly after
developing a new campus at a neighboring city, MHS
suffered a sizable loss
of US$ 147,000 in medication due to an unexpected
poweroutage.
An unexpected storm caused a power outage at an off-
site campus over a weekend. Hospital personnel
returned on Monday morning, only to find thousands of
dollars’ worth of vaccines and medications spoiled due
to refrigerators/ freezers being out of specification with
no warning, no notification, no alarm, and no way of
knowing how long thepower had been out. Healthcare
officials were left wonder-ing what time the power
outage occurred and how long the
medications/vaccines were outside of the acceptable
temperature range.
With proper data collection, you are able to determine
justhow long your refrigerators and freezers have been
down.This is especially important when the contained
samples and products are unusable after being outside
the tem- perature label conditions for a certain period
of time. Datacollection takes the guess-work out.
Case Three:
Irreplaceable Cancer Research
Kristi Oristian, BS, RAC, at Duke University Medical
Center, had conducted research on genetically
developed mouselines for three years. Mouse lines are
derived by the devel-opment of spontaneously
occurring tumors. The lab whereOristian works studies
pediatric sarcoma, which includes several different
types of cancer cells.
In February of 2015, Oristian’s lab had a critical failure of
anultra-low freezer, which occurred overnight and on a
week- end. The freezer was connected to Duke’s alarm
system, which utilized the freezer alarm to trigger a
phone call to the central security room at the campus.
With other events having priority to the security staff on
campus, the lab did not happen to receive phone
notifica-tion during the freezer failure.
Without weekend operating hours, it was only by
chance that a staff member stopped in and heard the
freezer alarming. By the time a fellow researcher got to
the lab toexamine the freezer, the temperature had
already risen by30 °C. This ultra-low freezer contained
three years’ worth of irreplaceable research, not to
mention costs of about US$ 3,500 a month to maintain
the mouse colony over a three-year period, totaling US$
126,000! If their liquid nitro-gen freezer were to fail
without notification, the samples would be irreplaceable
because they are unique to each mouse. Unfortunately,
product loss and stories like these are all too common,
and as told by Oristian’s experience, alarm systems can
vary.

5. Dry Alarm Contacts and Independent Alarm Systems
Dry alarm contacts use the equipment’s built-in alarm
system to trigger an alarm or phone call notification. The
alarming may even be tied into a building management
system. Before relying on this type of alarm method, you
should consider:
1. How valuable is your product? What is its worth?
2. How old is your equipment?
3. How often is your equipment calibrated?
4. Is regular maintenance performed?
Why are these questions important when considering a
dry alarm contact alarm solution? The disadvantage is
that all alarms are dependent on the equipment
operatingopti- mally. By design, refrigerators and
freezers work by utilizing built-in sensors and
mechanical components that communicate to each
other to maintain setpoints, display operating
conditions, and alarm. The problem is that the sensors
inherently drift over time, ultimately affecting theoverall
performance and alarming capabilities. Sensor drift
can even go unnoticed between annual system
calibrations.Essentially, the control system cannot be
solely relied on tomonitor itself. Even a minor change in
temperature could mean that your vaccines are no
longer viable or the pro- teins you’re storing are no
longer active.
“I had noticed by looking at the graphs
[generated by the data logger] that the
freezer was taking longer and longer to
recover from each cycle and equilibrate
back to appropriate temperature.
Eventually it stopped reaching the
temperature setpoint altogether and was
warming up, slowly, over a period of
weeks. When a technician attemptedto
service it, the condenser crashed
completely, but we were able to save allof
our samples because we knew it was
coming – Thank goodness!”
Take for instance, this example: According to NBC Bay
Area, in Los Gatos, California in March 2015, nearly 4,000
pediatric patients had to be revaccinated due to a faulty
refrigerator that was two degrees too cold to be storing
vaccines. Experts say that vaccines are always safe, in or
out of storage specifications, but may not be as effective.
It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of vaccines are
discarded every year due to flawed refrigeration systems
indoctor’s offices, clinics and hospitals.
According to manufacturers, the disposal of vaccines may
be avoidable if you know when your system went down
andhow long the critical samples were out of the
temperature range, due to guidelines. If the refrigeration
system isflawed, then the built-in alarm system could be,
too.
If you don’t want to rely on the equipment alarms or per-
haps the equipment has no dry contact alarm (this is the
case with standard home refrigerators and non- scientific
equipment), another option is an independent sensor to
provide remote alarms. The advantage here is that you are
not solely relying on the equipment alarms. The disadvan-
tage is the absence of temperature data or point-by-point
temperature readings. How long was your equipment out
of spec? Is your product inside still okay? Many times,
several phone numbers are setup to receive alarms. In
thiscase, who is responsible for responding?
Independent Sensor, Data Logger and Remote
Notification
The ideal setup is using data loggers with remote notifi-
cation that will continuously monitor equipment using an
independent sensor. You are able to program alarm
parameters, and in the case of an excursion, you will be
notified via text, email, and/or telephone call. Alarm notifi-
cations are set-up by the user in order to reach the correct
contact person, so he/she is able to respond to the alert.
Additionally, the data logger records point-by-point tem-
perature data so that you have the time stamped details of
temperature conditions.
In the event of an alarm, data can give you the peace of
mind that your product is still okay. You can review all
mea- surement points and know exactly how long the
tempera- ture excursion lasted. Data also provides you
with tempera-ture trends. In fact, Oristian recently
installed a network of data loggers in her lab and was able
to circumvent product loss by catching a freezer failure
before it happened.

6. Final Thoughts:
So What is the Ideal Monitoring Setup?
An alarm system alone is not enough to provide a reliable remote
notification. Make sure your monitoring solution includes:
remote notification, independent sensors, and data logging.
Unfortunately, unintended occurrences, natural disasters, and
accidents are going to happen. Ac- cording to Murphy’s Law,
“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong,” which is all too
common in everyday life. This is why it is crucial to ensure your
valuable products and research is safe with the right kind of
alarm system in place.
When searching for a solution to protect your
research,make sure it includes the following options:
Remote alarm:
Get notification in the event of a temperature excursionin the
form of a phone call, text, and/or email so that you can
respond in a timely manner.
Independent sensor:
Do not rely on the equipment’s built-in alarms. Whenthe
equipment fails, so could the alarm system, so it’sbest to find
an autonomous solution.
Data logger:
Temperature data to save the day! Make sure the datalogger
will record time stamped, point-by-point tem- perature data so
that you can view trends and review temperature conditions in
the event of an alarm.