Data Logger's PDF Reports Save Time

Reports from the TempTale can be viewed as a PDF on any computer.

Sensitech (Beverly, MA) has launched a TempTale data logger that creates a cold-chain shipment report in PDF file format on receiving sites’ desktops. Using the TempTale 4USB, sites can access temperature logger data without desktop software or hardware readers. Data loggers don’t have to be returned for downloading by shipment administrators.

The TempTale 4USB features a high-performance microprocessor with an integrated USB plug for interfacing with the PC. A PDF report is automatically created when the date is collected from the logger. The PDF file can be viewed on any desktop with Adobe-compatible PDF software, says Jeff Hawkins, strategic product manager, Sensitech.

“There is virtually no software footprint on the computer, which can be important from an IT management standpoint,” Hawkins says.

While the PDF file supports on-site review of shipment status, the data logger also creates an encrypted .ttx format file of the raw data. The file can be emailed to the shipment administrator for analysis and storage, using Sensitech’s desktop or Web-hosted cold-chain management applications. With these solutions, shipment data can be statistically organized and stored for 21 CFR Part 11 compliance record-keeping.

The TempTale 4USB supports increasingly complex distribution chains where numerous sites are receiving shipments, such as in clinical trials, says Henry Ames, Sensitech’s director of strategic marketing.

“Clinical trial receiving sites are focused on patient care and product quality and not information technology tools. Clinical site locations can change by 20% from month to month based on patient enrollment patterns. Administrators often find it challenging to effectively manage software and hardware deployments in support of the data collection and analysis,” Ames says.

“You need to be able to get the data off the monitor at remote sites in a timely fashion to make a disposition of the product,” he adds.

When data loggers are returned to administration sites, costs mount and trials are delayed. “Clinical trials are spending a lot of money to retrieve monitors. [Also], it can take 10 days or a week to receive a monitor by carrier. Meanwhile, the product sits in a quarantined state, slowing down the trial,” Ames says.

Ames says the TempTale 4USB will be most applicable for clinical trials and management of sales representative’s temperature-sensitive samples, where software and data logger management is more complex. “We feel this may eventually become a standard for all TempTale shipments.”