Shared Health Manitoba, on behalf of one of its functional units, Shared Health Research and Innovation, is seeking to establish a non-invasive, equipment-agnostic, comprehensive monitoring platform for its refrigerated laboratory equipment that centralizes monitoring of equipment situated throughout the facility and aligns with Shared Health Research and Innovation’s requirements.

Shared Health Manitoba is posting this Call for Innovation to seek out qualified Canadian companies who can meet the desired outcomes.  Shared Health Manitoba, Shared Health Research and Innovation and CAN Health reserves the right to not move forward with this project at its full discretion and in particular if there are no qualified Canadian companies that can reasonably meet the desired outcomes.

To qualify for a CAN Health project, the company must have its headquarters in Canada and/or the majority (>50%) of the company owned by Canadians and/or significant economic impact to Canada including a high Canadian job creation potential, >70% of contract value to Canada (for distributors of a non-Canadian solution), independent autonomy over business operations and product development (for subsidiaries, affiliates or distributors), current presence (office(s) and client(s)) and can benefit from the CAN Health Network. Priority will be given to companies that meet all eligibility criteria.

For more information on the Call for Innovation process and the commercialization projects funded by CAN Health Network, please refer to the FAQ page on the CAN Health Network website: https://canhealthnetwork.ca/faq/

This opportunity is closed.
Problem Statement and Objective(s)

Problem Statement: Shared Health Research and Innovation lacks an automated, comprehensive, and compliant monitoring system for cold storage. This poses significant risks such as compromising the integrity of stored materials, unrecoverable losses of critical biological specimens, reactive repairs, and increased downtime.

Objectives: Shared Health, on behalf of Shared Health Research and Innovation is looking to implement a versatile laboratory asset management and monitoring system capable of integrating with various refrigerated equipment. The system should provide continuous real-time monitoring of access, environmental conditions, and device performance across multiple locations to ensure proactive decision-making and regulatory compliance for Shared Health.

Desired outcomes and considerations

Essential (mandatory) outcomes

The proposed solution must:

  • Improve Operational Efficiency: A 30% reduction in operational disruptions (asset downtime) by optimizing preventative and corrective actioning. Automated, continuous real-time monitoring and alert notifications of critical environmental and performance parameters must reduce reactive responses and the capital expenditures associated with equipment failure.
  • Reduction of Manual Oversight & Staffing Burden: A 90% reduction in material loss, staffing burden, and compliance risks by eliminating manual collection methods through automated data collection within a single source platform for multiple units and locations. Equipment data, informational sources, and real-time reporting functionalities should be accessible through cloud computing and smart-phone technologies.
  • Enhances Integrity, Risk Mitigation, and Manage Liability: Ensures preservation and mitigates risk of unrecoverable loss and/or replacement costs of temperature-sensitive materials by maintaining optimal cold storage conditions.
  • Ensures Regulatory Compliance: Ensures sustained regulatory compliance and readiness through accurate, continuous, data logging of critical environmental parameters (i.e. temperature) that can be time-stamped, queried, and reported.
  • Optimally Informs Decision Making: Optimizes equipment performance through monitoring feedback, allowing for proactive actions which reduces capital costs and asset loss.
  • Cost Savings: A 20% reduction in energy consumption and associated capital costs while enhancing operational efficiencies leading to a reduction of manual oversight, staffing, reactive measures, and energy efficiency.
  • Single Source Repository for Critical Documentation: Critical documentation, including product manuals, warranty information, annual preventative maintenance (APM) records, calibration performance reports and training materials housed within a single source platform. This will eliminate all reporting estimations and increase accuracy for reporting.

Additional outcomes

N/A

The maximum duration for a project resulting from this Challenge is: 9 months

Background and context

Refrigerated equipment (i.e. refrigerators and standard/ultra-low temperature laboratory freezers) are critical physical assets used in preserving temperature of sensitive materials and perishables, such biological specimens, antibodies, reagents, and medications, that are essential for clinical health research and development activities. Daily use of such equipment enables the uninterrupted sequence of refrigerated storage within the cold chain process, establishing favorable conditions that preserve the integrity of materials and prevent degradation. Although established processes to monitor cold storage are in place for research of cold storage assets, in most cases, it is only for temperature excursion and not for performance nor is automated or comprehensive, requiring manual monitoring and collection of required data.

Performance and maintenance data are collected using traditional monitoring and collection methods that involve scheduled manual collection/human intervention and can be real-time limited, typically resulting in capturing data at specific time points throughout the day, as opposed to over a 24-hour period. This leaves most of the operational time temperatures unchecked.  When the manual recording of logs is missed, completed in error, or misplaced, it places the organization at risk for potential regulatory non-compliance.

This opportunity is closed.