Healthcare companies have been exploring new strategies to empower a remote workforce and facilitate the management of global, distributed supply chains across several states, countries, and continents. Remote work has become a more important trend in the pharmaceutical industry since many critical medical products must be shipped across borders and kept in appropriate storage conditions. As a result, increasing numbers of pharmaceutical companies have been finding ways to integrate new digital and IoT technology into their supply chains and operational procedures.
Technology that leverages advances in software and hardware infrastructure is already disrupting virtually all major industries, and IoT tech that leverages an internet connection and edge computing is transforming business practices. Moreover, remote work has become increasingly normalized in the developed world, and many businesses are adopting tools that facilitate a more remote-friendly work environment.
However, while many people are familiar with video conferencing, VPNs, Slack groups, and other tools that facilitate remote work, the role of data loggers in making remote medical jobs easier needs better understanding. Even fewer are aware of how new technologies are helping provide medical access to remote communities worldwide. All that considered, let’s look at how data loggers are already making remote medical work more productive and the future they’re likely to have in the industry.
Data Loggers for Remote Environmental Monitoring
Data loggers are one of the leading tech tools that healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are turning to enable remote medical work. Data loggers are small electronic devices that measure and record environmental data from their physical surroundings, such as temperature, humidity, differential pressure, and air quality. For example, the device’s internal memory can record the temperature data and then transfer it to external computers or cloud-storage systems using an internet or USB connection.
Data loggers are essential for making remote work easier for healthcare and pharmaceutical companies for various reasons. First and foremost, data loggers extensively monitor the storage conditions of pharmaceutical products. As a result, they store many critical medicines in specific environments and particular temperatures.
These pharmaceutical products can degrade and become ineffective if exposed to improper temperatures, putting patients at risk. As a result, regulators require many pharmaceutical companies to monitor storage environments carefully, collect temperature data, format it, and submit it for regulatory approval. Therefore, allowing regulators to be aware of unsafe pharmaceutical storage conditions that could endanger patients by creating a sustainable cold chain storage system.
In this sense, using data loggers to monitor storage facilities is necessary for quality assurance and compliance. However, data loggers also offer another significant benefit. They make it possible to monitor pharmaceutical storage facilities remotely.
Data loggers collect temperature data at regular time intervals completely automatedly, without human interaction, making them the perfect tool to enable remote medical work. Some data loggers might need to occasionally recalibrate or connect to an external computer to transfer data. Others, however, can be connected to the internet and remotely transmit data.
Internet-Connected Data Loggers, Cloud Computing, and Remote Medical Work
A remote capacity can manage internet-connected data loggers that transmit data wirelessly more easily. They also offer some additional advantages. For example, these data loggers can transfer data to cloud-based storage systems because of their internet connection.
That’s important since cloud computing offers additional healthcare industry benefits. First and foremost, cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud Platform, and Microsoft Cloud allow companies to rent out IT infrastructure and cloud solutions. Therefore, these companies can save big by not having to continuously buy, maintain, and upgrade their own IT infrastructure.
Downsizing hardware also means that more of the workforce can operate remotely since in-person hardware technicians are less of a necessity. In addition, these cloud providers also offer a metered service, meaning that companies only pay for the server, storage, and software services they use. As a result, it provides enhanced scalability and convenience for many pharmaceutical companies and remote medical centers.
As with any new technology, internet-enabled data loggers have their share of downsides. For example, these data loggers connect to the internet means that they could be more vulnerable from a cybersecurity perspective. Luckily, companies can take proactive steps such as setting up a screened subnet and a data recovery protocol and follow other best practices to minimize their cybersecurity risks.
Data Loggers for Remote Medical Clinics
Many medical clinics in remote or impoverished regions, such as certain small villages in Africa, struggle to power the lighting and medical equipment that keeps the clinic running. Expanding these communities’ access to power can significantly impact the lives of individuals in that area for the better.
As a result, various companies, such as We Care Solar, a California-based nonprofit organization, are building tools that offer power to these regions. For example, We Care Solar developed an off-grid photovoltaic power system that can collect and store energy from the sun for lighting and medical equipment in the clinic. That’s a big deal since many clinics still rely on kerosene lamps or candlelight, even while performing complex surgeries and medical procedures.
Equally important is that these power systems come with data loggers that can operate off-the-grid and provide crucial power consumption information. These clinics can then use these insights to optimize their power usage, save energy, and keep the clinics operational. In addition, the data loggers used in this context can be self-powered and highly automated to meet the needs of the clinics.
Moreover, they can record power usage data at regular 15-minute intervals for periods as long as six months. The data gathered can not only be used by the clinic to conserve their own power in the future, but it can also inform how best to help other remote communities that struggle to power medical clinics. Due to their many benefits, these PV systems, or solar suitcases as often called, can be found in over 300 medical clinics and 18 countries around the globe.
To sum up, data loggers can make remote medical work more manageable in various ways. For example, they can help monitor pharmaceutical storage facilities remotely, minimize the need for in-person storage technicians, and supply or manage power for remote medical clinics worldwide.
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