Hi,

As this year begins, your Medical Couriers (insourced or outsourced) are facing a new challenge: distributing frozen and refrigerated COVID vaccines.

You may find these tips on vaccine rollout beneficial:

1. COVID Vaccine — Transportation

Unlike standard vaccines, refrigerated COVID vaccines require active temperature monitoring during transport. After returning Pfizer’s or Moderna’s data recorders with the original packing, the couriers transporting the vaccines and the pharmacies dispatching couriers should take additional steps to ensure that vaccines are transported appropriately:

• Have a documented SOP for handling equipment and for the method couriers use to transport the vaccines between your locations.
• Ensure that the couriers transporting vaccines have documented pharmaceutical transport training compliant with your local board of pharmacy.
• Capture temperature readings upon pickup and delivery. Most courier mobile apps allow the courier to take a picture of the data recorder thermometer and upload it to the cloud, which will give you faster access to confirmation of appropriate temperature upon pickup and delivery.*

*If your medical courier operation (insourced or outsourced) is not utilizing a technology platform that allows you real-time visibility into parcel movements, please feel free to reach out to us and we will be happy to assist you in finding a solution.

2. COVID Vaccine — For Your Couriers

While doctors, nurses, and patients only risk exposure in one primary location, medical couriers service multiple locations every day. Thus, couriers are not only at higher risk of infection, but have a greater potential to spread the virus throughout a health system.

• Offering early vaccination to your medical couriers (insourced or outsourced) will help prevent superspreading. Medical couriers perform a critical function, and vaccinating them is crucial to providing continued service as case numbers and health systems’ work volume continue to rise. We strongly suggest that you ensure that your medical couriers are vaccinated with the appropriate priority.

We have successfully implemented these vaccination best practices with IDNs in multiple states. If you would like additional details, we would be delighted to connect with you and provide our insights and advice as a courtesy.

I’ll continue sharing our Medical Courier operations thoughts and insights with you. If you would like additional details, as a courtesy, we would be delighted to connect with you and provide our insights and advice.

Take care,

Oded Hadani
Chief Executive Officer
CoolSmart Medical Logistics