A Guide to: the Cost of Medical Fridges

Storing medicines and vaccinations properly is essential in medical facilities. You have two options: use a standard fridge or use a medical fridge specially designed for storing medicines.

Medical fridges represent a larger investment. As a result, some health organisations might choose to use a standard fridge to save money. However, aside from being potentially dangerous, this can also end up costing a lot more money in the long run.

Medicines and vaccinations are expensive. If they are not stored correctly and spoil, or become lost or stolen, the costs can be very high. According to one source, a fridge full of vaccines can have a value of $2,000 to $50,000.

But this doesn’t stop them from being stored incorrectly. In the United States, following inspections of 45 immunisation providers, over 20,000 vaccines at a value of $800,000 were found to be stored incorrectly. They were either stored in temperatures that were too high or low.

As such, it makes a lot of financial sense to store them correctly. So why should you choose a dedicated medical fridge for this purpose? 

Why a Medical Fridge Is an Essential Investment

The specialist features that come with medical fridges ensure stability and reliability of temperature, and they are also more secure than standard fridges. These are key when it comes to ensuring medicines do not spoil and are safe and secure.

Below, we take a more detailed look at some of these features.

Temperature Control

A dedicated medical fridge will come with highly accurate temperature control that ensures stability and reliability.

Standard fridges are simply not designed to provide highly accurate temperatures. Their purpose is to keep food and drink cool, but temperatures can fluctuate and this can be devastating for medicines and vaccinations.

The fundamental aim of a medical fridge is to provide accurate temperature control, ensuring the medicines remain at exactly the right temperature. It’s all about reliability, stability and consistency. Of course, you will also need to ensure vaccines are stored correctly.

Alarms

A good medical fridge will also come with alarm functions. This is to notify users that the temperature has dropped or risen. It acts as an early warning, and allows the user to reach before the medicines are damaged or ruined.

This could mean closing the fridge door if someone has accidentally left it open, altering the temperature settings, or moving the vaccines to another fridge if that one has broken.

Again, this reduces the chances that medicines will be wasted, helping to potentially save large sums of money.

Better Security 

Security is another feature of medical fridges. A good medical fridge should have a lock to prevent people from getting in and stealing the medicines.

Some medicines are very valuable and can be tempting targets for thieves. By keeping them locked away, the risk of theft – and the resulting financial loss – is greatly reduced.

Save Money By Investing in a Medical Fridge

As you can see, a medical fridge is a wise investment. While the temptation may be there to buy a less expensive standard fridge, this is an unwise choice for medical practitioners. Not only is it unsafe, but the costs could soon stack up due to spoiled vaccines. 

One final point to keep in mind is that if you provide a medicine that has been affected by the wrong temperature, it could become useless or even dangerous. If these medicines are given to patients, they could lead to complications, and this could open the door to lawsuits.

These can be incredibly expensive – so it’s best not to risk it and instead invest in a quality medical fridge.

Warranty

Our medical fridges are covered by a 5 year parts and labour warranty. You can extend this by a further 2 years for just £99. We make it a priority is to promptly replace any faulty components within this period.