Vaccines are a central component of preventive healthcare that help protect people against communicable diseases. Vaccine research, storage, and safety remain ongoing priorities for healthcare organizations, with new technology and updated guidance introduced regularly. Whether your facility focuses on general care, pediatrics, or infectious disease treatment, following protocols for vaccine storage and biosafety should always remain a top priority. Fortunately, tools exist to support the safe storage, management, and compliance with vaccine supply requirements.
Best Practice Guidance for Vaccine Storage and Handling
As with many U.S. healthcare protocols, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has established best-practice guidelines for vaccine storage and handling. Specific vaccine handling protocols are found within the Vaccine Storage and Handling Toolkit, last updated in March 2024. But layering on state and local health department immunization programs, manufacturer specifications, and emerging research from authorities such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology complements the CDC's guidance. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to make a mid-course correction in vaccine storage and handling, there are a few general steps you can take to get on the right path.
Designating a team member to oversee the coordination of your vaccine program will ensure that compliance requirements are understood and implemented. Clear standard operating procedures for vaccine storage and handling should capture those requirements. The SOPs will serve as the basis for your facility’s vaccine operations. They should provide information on vaccine types, manufacturers, staff training, routine storage and handling, and emergency storage.
Managing the Vaccine Cold Chain
Vaccines require a temperature-controlled supply chain from the manufacturer to the healthcare facility and until they’re administered. Within your facility’s SOPs, there should be an outline of the temperature control requirements for vaccine receiving areas, as well as the authorized personnel responsible for receiving and logging vaccine inventory. The conditions will require adequate monitoring and documentation to meet regulatory requirements and demonstrate compliance.
To help monitor these conditions and prove compliance, OneVue Sense® Environmental Monitoring by Primex provides a continuous monitoring solution that can help ensure your SOPs are upheld. Using automated temperature and contact closure monitoring technology, these advanced, connected digital data loggers can alert staff to temperature variances, log access times to restricted areas, and capture monitoring data for on-demand reporting via the web-based OneVue® Software dashboard.
Routine Vaccine Storage and Handling
After your facility receives vaccines, staff must adhere to SOP guidelines that follow measures for temperature control, inventory management, and storage monitoring. Similar to managing the cold chain, vaccine storage protocols require that conditions — including temperature, access, and storage duration — be monitored and documented. Facility staff can use the OneVue Software to track and view internal storage temperatures, monitor supply closet or fridge access, and store the information safely to create on-demand or routine compliance reports.
Ensuring Compliance in Emergency Situations
Preparing for emergencies, such as setting up triage or care units in pop-up hospital locations, is a crucial element of well-run healthcare facility operations. However, depending on the severity and duration of an emergency, it can be challenging to monitor the integrity of medication and vaccine storage. OneVue Sense eliminates this challenge by ensuring proper monitoring during emergencies thanks to its effortless scalability, easy-to-move sensors, and battery backup.
OneVue Sense Temperature Monitoring meets the compliance regulations set by the CDC, FDA, and other governing bodies. Temperature sensors are easily installed and portable, if necessary. They can also run on multiple power options, including AC and Power over Ethernet (POE) with battery backup, making them an ideal solution for emergency conditions that require monitoring capacity. The technology keeps data safe by storing readings locally during power outages. When systems are back online, sensors automatically send the information to the cloud-based OneVue platform. Users can also configure the monitoring units to signal local alerts (indicator light and audible alarms) during power and network disruptions.
Automated Monitoring and Biosafety
In addition to protocols for patient safety, vaccine research and use can require additional measures to ensure Biological Safety Levels (BSL) for laboratory and facility personnel. The CDC sets standards for BSL labs to ensure containment of biological agents. In certain BSL level areas, a key protocol is the use of self-closing, lockable doors.
OneVue Sense Contact Closure monitoring can track containment measures at a room perimeter, or when installed on biological safety cabinets, document door contact closure activity. When used with the OneVue software, the technology acts as a line of defense, confirming the integrity of controlled areas by verifying access against event and treatment logs.
Additional biosafety protocols may require sustained directional airflow to contain airborne contaminants. OneVue Sense Differential Pressure Monitoring solutions detect ultra-low changes in air pressure that could affect biosafety containment areas. The precision of OneVue Sense technology can detect changes in air pressure and alert the responsible staff via text message, email, or automated phone call. The system captures room pressurization data and allows users to access the readings from anywhere through the web-browser-based OneVue software platform.
Meeting Vaccine Storage and Handling Challenges with OneVue Sense
With OneVue Sense, maintaining vaccine protocol compliance can be achieved with precision monitoring and thorough documentation. The OneVue Sense suite of environmental monitoring solutions, including storage unit temperature, contact closure, and differential pressure, works in tandem with the OneVue software to produce easily accessible records and on-demand compliance documentation. With OneVue Sense, your team will be confident that your vaccine inventory remains in compliance with efficacy and safety requirements.
Ready to upgrade your vaccine storage and biosafety system? Contact our team today!
This blog was originally written in September 2020 and updated in February 2026 to reflect current vaccine storage guidelines.
