When you think of emergency backup generators and emergency preparedness plans, most people think of hospitals, grocery stores and their homes. However, one application that doesn’t always come to mind is pharmacies.
“Pharmacies play an important role in assisting patients after a disaster, so they need to have a disaster plan in place and conduct periodic reviews to ensure that it will work when needed.” – Jeannette Y. Wick, RPh, MBA, FASCP
Aside from the fact that pharmacies need to be operational at all times to serve and provide medicine to the public, having standby power, as part of a complete pharmacy emergency preparedness plan, is critical for the preservation of their medicine inventory. Backup power prevents “cold chain failure” when a power outage occurs. The cold chain refers to the continual safe handling practices for medicine and other medical material. Some medications are temperature sensitive and require certain temperatures at all points of storage and handling. One example is vaccines.
Many vaccines require refrigeration or freezing. Some vaccines cannot tolerate a freeze-thaw cycle. Vaccines can lose their potency if mishandled and their potency cannot be restored. Aside from that, vaccines are an extremely expensive asset for pharmacies. Vaccines are costly to produce and maintain – The national immunization program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has invested $150 million to provide and maintain vaccine inventories in the field. Vaccines are one of the more costly pieces in a pharmacy’s inventory. If a pharmacy were to lose a number of vaccines due to a lack of refrigeration during a power outage, it would be a huge blow to the pharmacy’s inventory and their finances. So, it is extremely critical that vaccines are protected.
Aside from vaccines, another heavily-stocked, top-selling item for pharmacies is insulin. Like vaccines, insulin also must be stored in temperature-specific areas for its entire life cycle. If you or someone you know has diabetes, you will know that insulin helps to ward off potentially life-threatening complications. With this type of inventory, having a standby power source to immediately switch over to in the event of an outage becomes a necessity.
Total Energy Solutions can help you protect your temperature-sensitive inventory with a standby generator. We offer both diesel and natural gas generators. As a full-service company, we not only sell and install generators, we also offer a full range of services to maintain your generator and offer assistance in developing a pharmacy emergency preparedness plan.
For more information about the generator services we offer contact your local service center.
