Ribb

Cold-Chain is the system of storing TSP’s within the temperature range of +2°C to +8°C from the point of manufacture through to administering to a patient, ensuring pharmaceutical efficacy. It requires spacing between TSP’s (25-30mm), ensuring airflow within the refrigerator. It places responsibility on busy pharmacy staff to: organise, pack and repack fridges, maintain spacing, avoid cold bridging, and at all costs, temperature breaches. This presented a compelling design challenge to improve: pharmacy performance, quality assurance, Cold-Chain adherence, reducing wastage of valuable TSP’s, and importantly, liberating time for pharmacy staff to focus on being pharmacists.

Ribb provides a retrofitted solution supporting Cold Chain adherence for hospital pharmacy refrigerators. It provides internal spacing management of TSP’s, and eliminates the hazard of cold bridging with fridge walls, when installed as a perimeter bumper. Development focused on design for the hospital environment, ensuring integration of clipping and spacing features that accommodate a wide range of wire spacings, used in pharmacy fridge shelves, providing utility across tray variations. Specified in polypropylene, Ribb aligns with hospital infection control drench procedures. Ribb’s tapered skeletal architecture provides unimpeded air circulation. The easy fold and clip assembly is quickly ready for installation.

Our focus within the Cold-Chain system is the pharmaceutical fridge, specifically the internal fridge management including physical organisation to achieve specific spacing of all TSP’s, improving effectiveness of fridge features and usability. Early trials across 40 hospital refrigerators showed a marked improvement in TSP organisation in keeping with Cold-Chain compliance. There was no perimeter cold-bridging. Clinical practitioners found TSP’s quicker and easier to access, minimising time the refrigerator doors remained open affecting refrigerator temperature balance, contributing to saving pharmaceuticals going to waste. Ribb, alleviated some of the time consuming responsibilities for Cold-Chain management from the clinical staff.

Ribb is designed for the lifetime of Cold-Chain refrigerators (10 years), with material specification designed for infection control procedures. When TSP’s are being packed-in, Ribb’s tapered form gently reinforces spacing order assisting packages to slide down and rest at the required spacing. The height and form of the closed hoop elements, allows staff to reach through and across shelves reducing snagging of clothing when TSP’s are being accessed. The open-ribb architecture provides unimpeded air circulation assisting temperature balance across the refrigerator. Ribb’s self-adjustment features allow it to be retrofitted across a range of Cold-Chain refrigerators. End clips, hold Ribb together when folded for installation. Expansion split-bungs provide a secure location when pressed into the wire shelf trays parallel to the sides of the refrigerator, designed to provide a secure location for 6-10mm wire spacing. Longitudinal compression and expansion joints allow split-bungs to align and securely locate across a 6-10mm wire spacing when installed across the back of a shelf tray. This accommodated 95% of the tray specifications. Indentations for trimming are provided for further size customisation if required. Flat-pack manufacture provides economic distribution. An easy fold and clip motion provides quick assembly and supports intuitive installation into refrigerators.