Search
Generic filters
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Search in excerpt
Timestrip time and temperature monitoring
Timestrip indicator labels are single use, low cost, patented technology diffusing liquid through a viewing window to reveal how much time has passed since activation or temperature breach

Featured Product

VOR
Shows length of time vaccines are out of fridge
Vaccines
vaccine out of fridge

More Info

Timestrip Applications
Timestrip News
eTimestrip App for pdf reporting
Download our eTimestrip app today. It is compatible with most of our electronic indicators and can be used to generate data report PDF and CSVs to save and share.

Featured Product

Timestrip neo
Electronic indicator with 3 temperatures
Timestrip neo
Timestrip neo TT525

More Info

Timestrip Applications
Timestrip News

An FDA-approved Irreversible Time and Temperature Indicator that ensures that only viable whole blood supplies are used post-transit

The high tech, low cost alternative to electronic dataloggers

  • Delivery of unambiguous safety data
  • FDA approved
  • Ease of use
  • Lower costs
  • Less wastage
  • Low carbon footprint

A critical issue for medical professionals is ensuring the viability of blood supplies once they leave the highly controlled storage environment, such as a blood bank refrigerator or a hospital blood storage facility. This aspect of the so-called blood cold chain is essential for ensuring that these are kept at the correct temperature right up to the time they are administered by trauma units, ERs, operating theatre staff, air/ ground ambulances, and any other situation requiring blood to be transported from storage units out to patients.

During transit, whole blood needs to be kept within a temperature range of 2°C/36OF to 10°C/50°F. Below this range, there is a risk of freezing with the formation of ice crystals, rendering the blood unusable, while upper temperature breaches create the possibility of blood being affected by an overgrowth of non-specific bacteria, which may have entered the blood unit during collection or component preparation.

Both these situations have serious consequences: the cost implications of a wasted product and/or more seriously, a patient that is put at risk.

To address these issues, Timestrip® has developed its single-use Blood Temp 10 – a high-tech, low cost Irreversible Time & Temperature Indicator that effectively monitors temperature breaches above 10°C/50°F during transit.

No more guesswork

Thanks to its innovative technology, Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 removes this uncertainty by providing clear, unambiguous data as to whether a supply of whole blood is safe to use or be returned to storage.

This is achieved thanks to the smart label’s two indicator windows:

• the first window to indicate if the label has been activated

• the second to indicate if a temperature breach has occurred

Thus, at a glance, medical staff know if a supply of whole blood is not only safe to use post-transit. The smart label also ensures a higher level of quality of the product is delivered by monitoring of temperature throughout transit.

Moreover, thanks to its irreversible feature, once the smart label has reacted to a temperature breach, this cannot be undone. For security reasons, the colour of the label’s indicator window stays permanently changed.

FDA approved … and more

Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 has FDA certification (FDA 510(k) #BK190363) and is manufactured with controls established by a IQC approved quality management system that conforms with ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 13485:2016.

With a temperature accuracy of +/- 0.5°C, this means that the Timestrip® label is designed with reliable and, more importantly, trustworthy technology as assessed by some of the world’s most stringent criteria. Moreover, extra security is assured by every Timestrip® label having its own unique serial number, thus ensuring full traceability.

Checking this list of features brings further benefits to healthcare providers involved in the transportation of whole blood by also ticking the box for local and internal regulatory compliance.

Cost savings

Because Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 ensures that only viable blood supplies are either administered post-transit, or returned to storage, the possibility of precautionary disposal is eliminated. This reduction in waste can have significant cost benefits.

In fact, studies have shown that loss rates without a Timestrip® are around 5%. These are halved with its use. In fact, reducing a loss rate by 9.9% pays for the total investment and a conservative 19.8% reduction doubles the ROI.

The generation of similar positive temperature monitoring outcomes are possible using other products, such as electronic devices. These, however, are far costlier.

Ease of use

Apart from delivering clear, unambiguous data as to whether post-transit a unit of whole blood may be used or returned to storage thanks its innovative indicator windows, the Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 is also remarkably easy to use.

In fact, unlike other whole blood temperature monitoring solutions on the market, Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 is a unique FDA 510(k) medical device that does not require preconditioning. Moreover, it is also CE approved and designed for:

• quick and easy application

• no prior conditioning by blood storage staff

• temperature breach data delivered at a glance by medical field personnel.

Prior to the transit of a unit of whole blood, a simple squeeze of the label’s activation blister is all that is required for temperature monitoring of a unit of whole blood to begin. Then the label just needs to stuck on the unit.

Squeeze, peel and stick – that’s it!

And the end of transit, Timestrip® technology has also been designed for maximum ease of use:

• until activation, the first indicator window is yellow and the second is white

• upon activation, the first indicator window turns green

• if a temperature breach has occurred during transit, the duration of the breach is indicated by the second white indicator window that proportionately fills up with blue dye

Product Specifications

10°C/50°F monitoring
Irreversible, single use
19mm x 32mm
Field activation
Visual proof of temperature exposure

Advantages over electronic dataloggers

Beyond being less expensive, Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 does not involve a datalogger’s complicated and sometimes cumbersome unit return program that is necessary to make it more affordable. The smart label’s single use indicator makes it the ideal fit for simple, straightforward and effective temperature monitoring.

The Timestrip® also is a super convenient shape: small, flat, with no batteries or any other electronic components to them.

For green credentials, the Timestrip® also outstrips traditional dataloggers in terms of carbon footprint, because the latter eventually needs to be either be thrown away or sent back to source to justify the expenditure.

Lastly, the Timestrip® has the potential of generating more accurate safety data. Indeed, because a container of units of whole blood will tend to use just a single datalogger, inevitably the temperature of ambient air within the container is taken into account, potentially generating less than accurate safety data.

With Timestrip® labels however, every single unit has its own temperature indicator. This means that the possibility of rejecting an entire shipment based on a single result is eliminated.

Timestrip will be attending the 29th Regional Congress of the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) in Basel, Switzerland from 22nd - 26th June 2019

See our blood temp indicators

We will demonstrate our Timestrip® Blood Temp 10 and Timestrip® Blood Temp 6 at the exhibition. We will be at Booth U106, Hall 4.U, please drop by and get a sample of our Blood Temp indicators to take away with you.

Our Blood Temp irreversible blood bag temperature indicators monitor temperature compliance in blood bags. They are especially relevant for monitoring blood temperature during transit from the highly controlled environment of the blood bank to use or store in a different destination, such as a hospital.

ISBT is a society in the field of blood transfusion, transplants, science and medicine. It facilitates knowledge about transfusion medicine to serve the interests of donors and patients.

Interview with Reuben Isbitsky, founder of Timestrip UK Limited, which has just received FDA clearance for its 10°C Non-reversible Blood Transit Temperature Indicator.

Beyond its primary use as a temperature monitoring device, what from the user’s point of view are the key advantages for users of Timestrip 10°C nonreversible temperature indicators for blood products over other temperature monitoring products?

First and foremost, ease of use. Unlike other temperature monitoring devices, Timestrip 10°C irreversible blood temperature indicator can be stored at ambient temperature. It doesn’t need to be stored in a refrigerator and also doesn’t need to be refrigerated for at least 24 hours prior to use.

Moreover, until the button on the Timestrip 10°C is pressed, the device remains totally inactive. There is no risk of accidental activation because of the heat generated by warm fingers. All parts of Timestrip 10°C can be handled by warm hands without this leading to accidental activation. This naturally translates into significant cost savings over extremely sensitive temperature monitoring devices that need to be discarded when accidentally activated.

Ease to use temperature indicators

With Timestrip 10°C, there’s no complicated four-minute instructional video with many caveats. All you need to do is take the blood bag out of the cooler, put it down, take the Timestrip, peel off its protective under-layer, press the activation button and stick it on the blood bag. That’s it.

We’ve also built into Timestrip 10°C a fail-safe activation indicator that tells the user that the Timestrip is ready to use and working. This is unique in the market. No other indicator has this feature.

Lastly, we put huge emphasis on ease of readability. With Timestrip 10°C, if there’s a temperature breach, the indicator will turn from white to blue. Thus, if the indicator on the Timestrip has any hints of blue in it, the user knows for a fact that there’s been a temperature breach.

We don’t want there to be any confusion caused by problems of refracted colours from misleadingly coloured components of temperature monitoring devices indicating that a temperature breach has occurred, when in fact none has. This only leads to uncertainty, which at best means more costs to users because of unnecessarily discarded, but otherwise properly functioning monitoring equipment, and at worst viable blood is unnecessarily discarded.

Blood is an extremely precious commodity and no one wants to be using an unreliable temperature monitoring device that leads to throwing away good blood. As one of our users in Europe says: “Blood is life.”

Interview with Reuben Isbitsky, founder of Timestrip UK Limited, which has just received FDA clearance for its 10°C Nonreversible Blood Transit Temperature Indicator.

 What does FDA clearance of Timestrip 10°C mean for your company?

It’s major milestone. Product-wise, we've been deemed and certified as having a medical device that has an accuracy level of ± 0.5°C and is suitable for transporting whole blood. FDA clearance for Timestrip 10°C will allow us to market this product for this specific application.

And for our business, it marks a very important turning point. We started off as a time indicator company, which evolved into a temperature monitoring business, that is now a high-end medical device and healthcare business.

Moving forward, our business model will be to configure new products for specific and invariably speciality uses. We’re also going to be expanding our range of products for specific uses to enable the safe transportation of the different components of whole blood as well, namely platelets, plasma and frozen blood products. This will go a long way to maximizing the usability of all these components. For instance, even properly transported and stored whole blood only has a shelf life of 35 days, but plasma can be frozen and has many uses.

Lastly, for markets outside the US FDA clearance gives our product enormous credibility. Although FDA clearance cannot be enforced outside the US, in fact for many markets such as Saudi Arabia and India, it is used as an indicator of credibility and for tendering processes is even a prerequisite.

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram