Martini Ziekenhuis: 'We use temperature data to reduce medicine waste'

What happens when a carefully prepared infusion leaves the hospital pharmacy but is not administered to the patient? Without reliable temperature data, the medicine may have to be discarded, even if it has remained perfectly safe. This results in valuable medicines being unnecessarily wasted and creates significant avoidable costs. Martini Ziekenhuis wanted to change that.

By adding Tapp’s paper-based data loggers to temperature-sensitive infusions, the hospital pharmacy can see exactly what happened after a medicine left its controlled environment. If an infusion is returned unused, the recorded data helps the team assess whether it can be safely released for reuse. The result: more certainty, lower costs and less medicine waste.

From uncertainty to an informed decision

Once an infusion left the pharmacy, the team previously had no visibility into the temperature conditions it had been exposed to. That created a dilemma whenever an expensive medicine was returned unused: it might still be suitable for another patient, but there was no reliable data to support that decision.

Tapp gives every infusion a temperature history. Pharmacy staff can read the paper-based data logger with a smartphone and immediately view the recorded conditions. This provides an essential piece of evidence for their professional assessment, without specialist equipment.

See how it works

In this short video, Martini Ziekenhuis takes us inside its hospital pharmacy and shows how one small data logger can help prevent valuable medicines from being discarded unnecessarily.

Better use of valuable medicines

For Martini Ziekenhuis, temperature monitoring is more than a compliance measure. It is a practical way to make better use of valuable healthcare resources while maintaining the highest standards of quality and patient safety.

Instead of discarding an infusion because part of its journey is unknown, the pharmacy can make an informed, data-based decision. Sometimes, preventing waste starts with simply knowing what happened along the way.