ColdLatch for pharmacies and hospitals: every medicine fridge, one record
Short answer: ColdLatch watches every medicine fridge and freezer you have, in every pharmacy or ward, from one account. When one stays out of range it tells the people you chose, keeps a signed record of what was decided about the stock, and gives you one PDF for the inspector. You do not need an ERP for any of this.
A pharmacy chain or a hospital has a different problem from a wholesaler. There is no single large cold room. There are thirty or three hundred small fridges, each in a different building, each checked by whoever is on shift. The readings exist, usually on paper or in a logger nobody downloads until something has gone wrong.
What you get
- Every fridge on one screen. Each fridge or freezer is one monitored point, with its own temperature limits. Sites are not counted: thirty pharmacies cost the same as one building with thirty fridges. Name the pharmacy on each fridge and the reports group by pharmacy.
- Alerts that mean something. An alert is raised only when readings stay out of range for longer than the delay you set, so an open door during a delivery does not wake anyone. It goes out by email, Slack or Microsoft Teams, and again if nobody has opened it.
- A logger that goes quiet is noticed too. A flat battery or a lost connection raises its own notice, so a silent fridge is never mistaken for a healthy one.
- A signed decision for each medicine. List what is kept in a fridge, and an excursion proposes a hold for each line. The pharmacist in charge approves or releases each one with their password and a reason.
- Paper for the inspector. A PDF for one excursion, and one PDF for any period: every alert, who decided what and why, each logger's calibration, and how complete the readings were.
- Ready-made limits. New profiles start from the usual ranges: 2 to 8 °C for refrigerated medicines and vaccines, 15 to 25 °C for room temperature, -25 to -15 °C for frozen. You adjust them to your own procedure.
What you need
- Loggers that can send their readings. ColdLatch is software. It takes readings from any logger or gateway that can send them over MQTT or HTTPS; the HTTPS guide shows the request, and LoRaWAN sensors connect through The Things Stack. Tell us what you have, or ask us before you buy.
- Nothing else. No server, no installation on the pharmacy computers. People sign in from a browser, in English, German, French, Spanish or Macedonian.
What it costs
Without an ERP connection, monitoring is €99 a month for the whole company with up to 10 fridges, and €12 a month for each further one, up to 50. Thirty pharmacies with one fridge each come to €339 a month. Users are unlimited, the reports are included, and the first 30 days are a free pilot. Larger networks, or a chain whose stock system should receive the holds, are on the plans with an ERP connection.
What it does not do
- It does not include the loggers, and it does not calibrate them. It records each logger's calibration certificate and warns when one runs out.
- There is no phone app and no SMS yet. Both are on the roadmap; today alerts arrive by email, Slack and Teams.
- It does not replace your dispensing or pharmacy system. It can tell that system about a hold through the integration API, if your supplier connects it.
This page describes the product, not your legal duties. Your own approved procedures and the rules of your licence decide what you must record.
Next: What to do when a cold room has a temperature excursion: a checklist