PEARL, Miss. & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Family Health Care Clinic, a leading provider of pediatric and family medical care in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, and TruMed Systems, the maker of the AccuVax® Vaccine Management System, announced today that the practice is replacing the conventional refrigerators/freezer units it has historically used to store vaccines with the AccuVax to automate vaccine storage, monitoring, and handling across each of its 25 clinics.
AccuVax is a purpose built, pharmaceutical-grade vaccine storage and handling system that ensures vaccines are maintained to the strictest of standards through a unique door-less design and built-in battery backup that maintain ideal temperature.
Margaret Gray, MD, President and CEO of Family Health Care Clinic, said this ideal temperature control protects the integrity of vital vaccines and offers peace of mind to busy practitioners that their patients are optimally protected against preventable disease.
“We serve a diverse and vulnerable patient population who rely on the vaccinations we provide to stay healthy,” Dr. Gray explained. “AccuVax not only protects our vaccine supply, it eliminates cumbersome administrative tasks of tracking and rotating vaccine stock, allowing our staff to spend more time on caring for our patients and ensuring appropriate billing.”
AccuVax is designed to guard against inventory losses due to temperature fluctuations, power failure, improper storage and expired doses, which can occur frequently,1,2 and create challenges for even the most advanced practices and health systems.
The staff at Family Health Care Clinic know this from firsthand experience. A clinic in Pelahatchie, Mississippi was closed for the Christmas holiday when an unusual cold front came through. In addition to the unexpected cold snap, the building’s heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system had been mistakenly turned off, so the temperature inside the clinic dropped nearly 20 degrees. The staff reported that their old refrigerators couldn’t have managed this drastic temperature change. But AccuVax’s 24/7 remote monitoring service, which keeps track of temperatures both within and around all customer units, was able to react quickly, and remotely adjusted the temperature controls of the AccuVax unit to maintain ideal temperature levels for the vaccine stored, thereby saving thousands of dollars of vaccines.
“AccuVax has been a tremendous help to our practice and simplifies compliance with seven of the ten Vaccines for Children (VFC) program requirements for our practice sites,” Dr. Gray said. “It also streamlines the reordering of vaccines and keeps accurate, real-time inventory.”
Thanks to vaccines, infants and children are protected against 14 vaccine-preventable diseases before age two. Vaccines are also routinely recommended to protect many adults against such diseases as seasonal influenza (flu), pneumonia, shingles, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus and diphtheria. But once vaccines leave the manufacturer, how they are handled, stored and ultimately delivered to patients is critically important, explained Jesper Jensen, CEO of TruMed Systems.
By automating so much of the process, clinicians have more time to spend on patient care and education, which carries important benefits.
“Family Health Care Clinic’s experience is a real-world example of how AccuVax can save medical clinics time and money, and most importantly safeguard the integrity of vaccines that protect families and children from potentially debilitating disease,” said Jensen. “We are proud to be working with them in this endeavor.”
TruMed Systems announced the commercial availability of the AccuVax Vaccine Management System in September of 2017.
About Family Health Care Clinic
Family Health Care Clinic, Inc. began providing primary health care services to patients in Rankin County in 1977. We have since expanded services to include several other counties and communities - dispensing healthcare resources that include Medical, Dental and Nutrition Services. Family Health Care Clinic is headquartered in Pearl, Mississippi and operates in Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Family Health Care Clinic is an FTCA deemed community health center. We are a Health Center Program grantee under 42 U.S.C. 254b, and a deemed Public Health Service employee under 42 U.S.C. 233(g)-(n). For more information, visit www.familyhealthcareclinic.com
About AccuVax® Vaccine Management System
AccuVax is the purpose-built vaccine supply management system that automates product control and integrity, minimizes risks of incorrect vaccine delivery, and optimizes office work flow so that providers can focus on care delivery. AccuVax is an integrated solution that includes hardware, software, online access, software updates, training, optional integrations, technical support and maintenance. It is already being used in many individual clinics, major health systems and public healthcare facilities throughout the US. The vaccine management system is available as a monthly subscription, requiring no down payment and no capital expense.
The AccuVax vaccine management system is now available to medical practices and health systems stretching from Miami, Florida to Nome, Alaska.
More information about the AccuVax Vaccine Management System can be found by visiting http://www.accuvax.com or calling 1-844-TruMed1. Watch the YouTube video on AccuVax.
1 U.S. Energy Information Administration, https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=27892.
2 Hibbs et al. Vaccine. 2015 Jun 22;33(28):3171-8. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.05.006. Epub 2015 May 14.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25980429
