Time-sensitive products such as medicines, vaccines, cosmetics, and replacement items such as water filters require careful monitoring of their shelf life and expiration dates.

Inaccurate monitoring can result in waste, loss of efficacy and potentially dangerous consequences. Timestrip Time is a reliable time indicator solution that allows manufacturers and end users to keep track of their products throughout their lifetime.

What is Timestrip Time?

Timestrip Time is a time indicator label that provides a simple and effective way to monitor the passage of time. The label consists of a paper or plastic card, with an irreversible visual indicator that changes its pattern over time.

Typical applications are:

• Medical and healthcare environment. Items such as hospital curtains needs regular replacement to main standards of hygiene. Drugs have an expiration date, and stocks must be rotated to avoid wastage. A Timestrip indicator can make this a simple and highly visible operation. Endoscopes sterilisation need to happen promptly as part of standard procedure, and again a time indicator can ensure that is part of best practice.
• Manufacturers can include time indicators with their consumable products such as replacement filters and brush heads. Regular changing by end users keeps equipment working efficiently and safely, and boosts supplier revenues.

How to use a Timestrip Time indicator?

The Timestrip Time label is activated by pressing a button on the label's back. Once activated, the label starts tracking the elapsed time, with the visual indicator changing as time passes. The label can be customized to track different time intervals, ranging from hours to several years.

Timestrip Time offers several benefits over traditional time monitoring methods:

Accurate and reliable

Timestrip Time provides accurate and reliable time monitoring, with the visual indicator changing pattern as time passes. The speed of the process is calibrated to ensure accurate tracking of time, even in varying environmental conditions.

Easy to use

Timestrip Time labels are easy to use and do not require any specialized training or equipment. The label's clear visual indicator makes it easy to monitor elapsed time, and the label can be attached to almost any surface, including primary products, packaging and equipment. End users can interpret the indicators as easily as supply chain professionals.

Customizable

Timestrip Time can be customized to meet the specific time monitoring needs of different industries and applications. The label's activation time, elapsed time, and visual indicator can be customized to suit a wide range of products and environments. Customer branding is also available.

Cost-effective

Timestrip Time is a cost-effective time monitoring solution compared with other methods such as electronic timers or manual recording. The label's low cost and ease of use make it a practical choice for any organisation that needs to ensure time is monitored effectively.

Contact us today to learn more about how Timestrip Time can benefit your business.

Timestrip has a new white paper detailing the importance of preventing virus transmission in light of the novel Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

For more information on how Timestrip UK Ltd is handling the COVID-19 pandemic, please see this post.

Whether in a major teaching hospital, a walk-in clinic or a doctor’s surgery, any type of healthcare boils down to two broad objectives: improved patient outcomes and the best possible use of resources.

Although historically reconciling patient health and the harsh realities of budgetary constraints have at times led to difficult choices, the fact is that by integrating technology and innovation into decision making around resource allocation, both objectives can be achieved at the same time.

Indeed, thanks to its high tech / low cost Time and Temperature Indicator labels, Timestrip® is able to provide healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical sector with a broad range of practical, user-friendly solutions that:

✔ Ensure product quality

✔ Reduce product waste

✔ Ensure regulatory compliance

✔ Reduce time and temperature monitoring costs

But what does this look like in practice?

Improving quality control and efficiency

Tenet Healthcare is US healthcare provider that faced the challenge of needing to effectively manage how it processed bags of whole blood. On the one hand, it faced the need to comply with local regulatory requirements related to the use of effective temperature monitoring for blood products; and on the other, it had to discard any bag of blood that had been exposed to a temperature above 10°C for more than 30 minutes.

The company needed to be absolutely certain that any unused bag of whole blood was 100% safe to be returned to storage for future use. It had also noted ongoing difficulties in using other blood temperature indicators. Potentially, the latter could lead to doubts about product safety, which in turn would require that bag of blood to be discarded, possibly unnecessarily.

Its use of Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 – 10°C Blood Irreversible Transit Temperature Indicator noted the following advantages:

✔ Improved quality of care

✔ Improved workflow efficiency

✔ Maintenance of quality control during transportation and storage

✔ Support in complying with regulatory guidelines

Cost-effective regulatory compliance

Marathon Distributors is a pharmaceutical and healthcare logistics services provider in Cyprus and is involved in the distribution of pharmaceutical products throughout the island. The main cold chain management issue it faced was around compliance with local and EU regulations, specifically the country’s Law on Human Pharmaceuticals 70(I) 2001 and the EU guidelines on Good Distribution & Manufacturing Practices. These mandated the company to ensure that the pharmaceuticals it delivered were not exposed to a temperature above 8°C for more than 8 hours during transportation.

Although other products helped achieve regulatory compliance, the company began using Timestrip® PLUS™ 8°C 8 Hrs (TP065) Irreversible Time and Temperature Indicators because they were much more competitively priced.

Overall the company reported:

✔ Timestrip Indicators were 50% cheaper

✔ Delivery costs were 50% lower

✔ Delivery times were faster

✔ Positive end-user feedback around ease of use

Easy temperature monitoring for vaccine transport

Cambridgeshire Community Service NHS Trust is a UK healthcare provider in south-east England. Part of its work is the delivery of school-age immunisations to schools in its area. This includes for instance flu nasal immunisations for primary schools and HPV vaccinations and Meningitis ACWY and TdIPV for secondary schools.

For the delivery of vaccines, electric Labcold Portable Vaccine Carriers and pharmaceutical-grade vaccine carriers are used. In order to maintain the efficacy of the various transported vaccines, two different temperature ranges need to be managed: 2°C to 8°C and -25°C to 25°C.

In order to ensure the delivery of viable, unspoiled vaccines, the Trust thus had a requirement for a dual, low-cost solution for use by its delivery teams.

To achieve this, two Timestrip products have been used in each vaccine carrier:

● a Timestrip® PLUS (TP 065) to indicate if the temperature went above 8°C

● a Timestrip® PLUS (TP 217) to indicate if the temperature exceeded 25°C, and if so, for how long

The feedback from the delivery teams has been extremely positive, specifically around:

✔ Easy to read visual data

✔ Ease of use

✔ Reliability

Reliable test kit time data

Clinical Innovations is a US maker of obstetrics devices that wanted to develop a non-invasive test kit for the diagnosis of any rupture of membranes (ROM). Although treatable, spontaneous ROM is a serious medical condition and a major cause of preterm births. Thus, an accurate diagnosis of ROM can be a key factor in determining timely and appropriate medical intervention. Similarly, a false diagnosis of ROM can lead to unnecessary hospitalisation, medication and even induced premature delivery.

Timestrip was able to provide Clinical Innovations with Time Indicators for its ROM Plus® self-contained test kit. These give clinicians the essential and immediate data they need to reduce the dangers of any premature ROM for expectant mothers and their babies.

The test kit uses Timestrip technology with an in-built 20-minute time monitoring indicator that generates the required data within 5-20 minutes, with 5,10 and 20 minutes clearly indicated on the Timestrip. Its key benefits are:

✔ Clear visual data

✔ Ease of use

✔ Improved health outcomes

Hygienic healthcare environment

Beyond pharmaceuticals and blood products, healthcare also involves various types of disposable items that need replacing regularly. Especially for the sick, hygiene in the clinical environment is an essential aspect of patients being able to make a full recovery. Timestrip indicators make excellent cleaning reminders for surfaces, filters and instruments.

Assuming the absence of any complications, catheters for instance need to be replaced every 30 days for Foley catheters and every 60-90 days for silicone catheters. Catheter bags however need to be replaced every 5-7 days. If these items are not replaced at appropriate intervals, opportunities are created for harmful pathogens to develop.

Unsurprisingly, this has also been shown to be the case for hospital privacy curtains. Dr Kevin Shek was the lead study author into the rate of contamination of hospital privacy curtains in a burns/plastic ward. In a report about the study findings in Nursing Times, he said:

“We know that privacy curtains pose a high risk for cross-contamination because they are frequently touched but infrequently changed. The high rate of contamination that we saw by the fourteenth day may represent an opportune time to intervene, either by cleaning or replacing the curtains."

Especially in busy hospital departments such as Accident & Emergency and ICU, hospital privacy curtains can quickly become contaminated with bacteria such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile (C. diff). Thanks to Timestrip® Time Monitoring Indicator panels that change color after a set period of time, clinical staff are alerted when a privacy curtain needs to be changed. They help a hospital achieve:

✔ Best use of resources with a low-cost solution

✔ Compliance with guidelines around frequency of change

✔ Less time needed to monitor when that change needs to occur

✔ Hygienically clean hospital environment for patients

How Timestrip irreversible time sensitive indicators are used in Germany by Ulmer Wohnungs for their apartment ventilation units to remind tenants that they need to change the ventilation duct filters.

Translation: "In many UWS apartments, ventilation units are installed which permanently ensure fresh and clean air. Only when the filter is clean, do the fans work quietly and use less energy. In our video we show you how to easily change the filter."

Timestrip Time Sensitive indicator labels

Timestrip can make you a custom Time Sensitive Indicator Label - we create custom solutions that measure time ranging from 1 hour up to 2 years. We are ISO 9001:2015 certified and Timestrip time indicators offer a helpful visual reminder of service and maintenance schedules for consumable components. Accurate and reliable, Timestrips contribute to a more positive experience for the consumer and help ensure optimum performance from appliances that need replacement indicators or service reminder indicators in order to function effectively.

We are happy to announce our 24 month elapsed time indicator is the newest addition to our stocked elapsed time monitoring indicators.

Now available for ordering.

For users, the Timestrip® 24 month elapsed time indicator offers a convenient visual reminder of service maintenance schedules for household and industrial products.

Brands can integrate the indicators directly into consumable products. Customers can then be visually alerted that the products need to be discarded and replaced regularly.

Medical devices can be harmful if not routinely replaced. These long time indicators are perfect for visually reminding you how long they have been in service.

Simple activation, clear elapsed time indication

Timestrip® 24 month time indicators are single use and show the total amount of elapsed time since activation — up to 2 years.

Our elapsed time indicators are inert until activation. First, press the blister on the back of the indicator to activate. A red activation line appear in the front window. Next, the window will then fill with colour as time passes.

During the monitoring period, you will be able to see the colour progress pass each time marker. The colour progression lets you know how long it has been since activation. Timestrip® 24 month has time markers at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 months, the indicators have plenty of options for flexible time monitoring uses.

Interested in how Timestrip® 24 month elapsed time indicator could work for you? Ready to order? Contact us today.

For our full range of short and long elapsed time indicators: see here for elapsed time monitoring indicators

The Timestrip team regularly gets feedback from clients across the world about the value that its range of Irreversible Time and Temperature Indicators brings to making production processes safer and more secure.

So in a world which normally deals with the critical issues of health and food safety, the mood in the office has been lightened with news from south-east Asia of a novel use of its 7 Days Time Indicator.

On a building site in Japan, new recruits on a construction site undergo a seven-day training programme and have a Timestrip 7 Days Time Indicator on their security helmets. Thus, when the window on the tag is completely filled with colour, site managers know that the beginners have completed their induction programme.

This strategy is particularly useful when starters begin their seven-day training programme on different days, because access to specific parts of the construction site or the handling of a particular piece of machinery can only occur once the required training linked to a related day has taken place.

Until now the benefits of Timestrips have been closely aligned with the needs of food safety and securing various cold management processes for blood products as well as the Pharmaceutical, Healthcare & Life Sciences industries.

This ingenious use of Timestrip 7 Days Time Indicator points to a new benefit: Health & Safety related to required training.

Is your company using their Timestrips in an unusual way?

If so, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.

Timestrip UK Ltd has announced it is working with Trust for Vaccines & Immunization (TVI), a not-for-profit organization, established to help ensure that every child, irrespective of his/her social class, colour or ethnic group is protected against Vaccine Preventable Diseases in Pakistan and around the world.

TVI is the recipient of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations Award to develop a Vaccine Indicator and Reminder (VIR) band and is working in collaboration with Timestrip to develop the innovative device, reminding parents for timely completion of their children’s vaccines.

Vaccine Indicator Reminder system

Working in partnership with Timestrip® and design consultants Daylight, Dr. Noor Sabah Rakshani from TVI has created the Vaccine Indicator Reminder (VIR) band to provide a simple, low-cost method of showing when each of the three rounds of vaccines needed over the first 14 weeks of a child’s life are due, alerting the mother with a clear visual marker at 6, 10 and 14 week intervals.

Whilst the World Health Organisation estimates that vaccinations help save over 2.5 million lives each year globally, figures indicate that up to 60% of children in Pakistan do not complete the immunization schedule.

Those with a vaccination reminder card achieve above 80% vaccination completion but if no card is available, or if the card is lost or damaged, the child may miss a lifesaving vaccination.

This new ‘wearable’ healthcare reminder solution is being heralded as a breakthrough solution, thanks to the revolutionary application of a Timestrip® indicator manufactured into the durable, soft plastic waterproof VIR band, which is attached to the baby’s ankle.

Each VIR band is marked with a unique number to match the child’s medical records at the point of issue.

The failsafe and irreversible nature of the Timestrip® technology (activated by simple finger pressure) shows each of the 6, 10 and 14 weeks vaccination milestones.

As the highly visible red indicator liquid (a food grade dye) sealed inside the Timestrip® migrates along the clear window, the three vaccination periods are graphically marked.

Timestrip’s patented ‘liquid’ technology ensures the accurate passage of elapsed time over the entire 18 week period.

There are no moving parts or electronics, just good science helping mothers and carers follow their child’s vital vaccination program with nothing but a quick glance at their baby’s ankle.

Dr. Noor Sabah Rakshani is excited at the progress made since the first VIR Bands were shipped to Pakistan late last year.

“We started our community effectiveness trial on October 28, 2014 in four study sites in Karachi, Pakistan. As of February 2015 the team has enrolled 344 children in the intervention and control groups, with 200 wearing the VIR band and 144 children in the control group receiving only the routine immunization card.

We have started receiving input from the parents as they come back for their second and third doses of the vaccine at 6, 10 and 14 weeks time.

Aside from the vital funds and invaluable support this pilot study has received from the Gates Foundation, an application for a GAVI grant to introduce the VIR band through a community midwifery program is also in the works.

The idea is for every midwife to give an activated VIR band to every infant they attend to in the community, and the VIR band will indicate to the parents the ‘Number of Weeks Unprotected’ for their child.

We are taking small but very important steps in our quest to protect children from vaccine preventable illnesses across Pakistan and around the world. The environmental friendly low cost and widely used Timestrip® technology has made it possible for the VIR band to be tested in low income communities in Pakistan and and I am thrilled to be working with the team.”

Commenting on the VIR band project, Timestrip® Founder Reuben Isbitsky said:

“We have a long history of innovation in the medical and pharmaceutical sectors, including the development of temperature monitoring products for blood products and vaccines. This project has allowed us to support the creation of a simple but life-saving product that could help millions of children who suffer through incomplete vaccination regimes. We are absolutely delighted to be helping bring about change in this vital area of work.”

Timestrip is proud to announce the successful certification to ISO 13485:2003 Quality Management Standard for Medical Devices in addition to our recent recertification of ISO 9001:2008.

Recognised around the world, the ISO 13485:2003 registration is based on eight quality management principles. These include: customer focus, leadership, involvement of people, process approach, system approach to management, continual improvement, fact-based decision-making and mutually beneficial supplier relationships.

The certification of the Company’s compliance with ISO 13485:2003 recognizes the policies, practices and procedures of our firm to ensure consistent quality in the products provided to our customers. With this certification, our medical and non-medical clients can be confident that Timestrip is dedicated to maintaining the highest efficiency and responsiveness achieving our ultimate goal – Guaranteed Customer Satisfaction.

Timestrip is certified as meeting the requirements of ISO:13485 for the following activities: DEVELOPMENT AND MANUFACTURING OF SMART LABELS FOR MEDICAL USE.

To maintain our certification, Timestrip will perform annual audits to ensure compliance and to assess initiatives for continued improvement. Our customers can be confident that Timestrip will continue to provide the high quality services they have come to expect well into the future.

We believe that our decision to become ISO 13485 Certified is a proactive one that not only anticipates the demands of our customers, but also demonstrates our commitment to providing quality services to all our customers in the medical industry. We strongly believe augmenting our certification offers our customers a “Best-in-Class” choice for smart labels.

The accreditation also supports our work in pharmaceutical categories, where a range of Timestrip products are used to identify temperature breaches in highly regulated cold chain environments. We are helping to protect patients and prevent unnecessary wastage of many drugs, vaccines and blood products, where the 2-8°C/46°F storage range is critical to so many products.

Timestrip indicators are leading the market in the provision of low-cost temperature indicators, as demonstrated by our blood bag temperature monitoring labels. In 2013 we launched the Timestrip Blood Temp 10 indicator, in response to the need to reduce wastage of precious blood stocks, discarded through uncertainty around temperature breaches incurred when bags are in use and removed from carefully controlled refrigeration storage units in blood banks.

In 2014, Timestrip UK Ltd announced it is working with Belgian Red Cross-Flanders to develop new blood temperature monitoring labels with a product development program looking to create optimal temperature  monitoring labels for the blood collection, distribution and transfusion organisations operating within the Flanders catchment area.

Temperature monitoring labels based on the existing Timestrip Blood Temp 10 product are now being developed and reviewed in consultation with Belgian Red Cross-Flanders.

Also in 2014 we were proud to be the technology of choice for an innovative new product created to provide a wearable, low-cost vaccination reminder product for new-born children.

The Bill Gates Foundation funded Vaccine Reminder Band is currently undergoing field trials in Pakistan. Timestrip has a long history of innovation in the medical device sector and we now provide a range of products which act as invaluable visual aids to doctors, patients and healthcare workers.

For example in the UK, a number of NHS dispensing pharmacies are already using Timestrip® PLUS to monitor the cold chain for temperature-sensitive drugs such as Neulasta® and Total Paternal Nutrition (‘TPN’) products.

Timestrip is committed to quality assurance processes and procedures and we see the ISO 13485:2003 Quality Management Standard for Medical Devices accreditation as a natural progression of our work in the specialist markets in which we aim to excel.

Acana is a new and dynamic player in the Aircare, Insecticide and Household categories based in Nottingham in the UK.

As part of its aggressive NPD program, Acana has launched a new Moth Monitoring product – available in both Primary & Refill packs.

Both packs can be found initially in John Lewis, Lakeland and Robert Dyas stores and the products are also about to launch in overseas markets including Malta, UAE and Saudi.

Pest control trap replacement timer

This latest addition to the Acana Moth Range has been specially developed to attract and trap moths – without the use of harsh chemicals. The Moth Trap uses the latest pheromone technology to attract adult moths and checks for any moth infestation as a ‘first alert’.

The product comes with a Timestrip visual ‘End of Life’ Indicator mounted on the front. Once activated by simply finger pressure it displays elapsed time and prompts the replacement of the sticky pad moth catcher after 8 weeks.

Stuart Anderson, Managing Director commented: “Acana is delighted to be using the Timestrip technology. From the get-go I have been a “believer” in this innovative solution and our new Moth Trap products are the perfect products to take advantage of the benefits the Timestrip provides.”

He went on to say: “Users of our new product can see exactly when they need to replace the Pheromone Glue Boards. We are confident that this will lead to prompt renewal and help increase repeat purchase rates.

It has the added benefit of showing users when the product has stopped working – insuring continuous protection from the menace of Moth damage. The technical nature of the Timestrip also helps reinforce the Acana brand values.”

The Moth Trap is only the 2nd Acana product to use the Timestrip device but Acana plans to extend the scope of its adoption to other future products.

As Timestrip Managing Director Reuben Isbitsky observes “Our life In Service indicators can monitor elapsed time from just a few hours to 3 years and we have already engineered our product into components manufactured by some of the world’s most trusted brands.

Acana shares the common aim of helping consumers take the guess-work out of following refill replacement schedules and we are delighted to be working with a UK company looking to innovate within established categories.”

Clinical Innovations Rom Plus™ Fetal Membranes Rupture Test with Timestrip®

With an accurate diagnosis of PROM (premature rupture of membranes),  patients can receive interventions to minimize the risk of complications.

ROM Plus™ is a self-contained test  designed by Clinical Innovations that comes packaged for use in either a POC (point-of-care) setting or in the lab. The cassette has a built-in twenty minute time monitoring Timestrip® indicator and lateral flow test strip as well as a patient ID field.

Clinical test timer

The built in Timestrip® time indicator measures the length of time elapsed between the beginning of the test until the time the results can be read.

The results manifest within 5-20 minutes. 5, 10 and 20 minutes are clearly marked on the Timestrip®, allowing for clinicians to have a clear visual indication of when results are ready.