Validated for Pharma. Dissolves in the Sink.
How United Health Services Hospitals, Inc replaced StyrofoamTM with a compstable, pre-qualified cold chain shipper for its mail-order pharmacy program.
As the leading healthcare system serving greater Binghamton and New York's Southern Tier, United Health Services Hospitals, Inc (UHSH, Inc) is committed to helping patients get better and stay healthy. That commitment extends beyond the hospital with a mail-order pharmacy program that delivers temperature-sensitive medications directly to patients' homes.
To ensure those prescriptions remain between 2–8°C for up to 48 hours in transit, UHSH, Inc. needed isothermal packaging that protected both the medication and the patient experience.
The Challenge
For years, UHSH, Inc. relied on an expanded polystyrene (EPS) cooler solution to protect these shipments. It worked, but it came with a growing problem: patients had no good way to get rid of the coolers. EPS isn't accepted in most curbside recycling programs, so used shippers piled up in garages, basements, and landfills. UHSH, Inc. needed an insulated shipper for pharmaceuticals that was as thoroughly validated as EPS, but without the disposal problem.
When COVID-19 drove a sharp increase in home delivery volume, the issue compounded. More patients receiving more shipments meant more Styrofoam coolers arriving at more front doors. There was a corresponding rise in patient complaints about disposal. For a healthcare system built around patient experience, an unrecyclable box showing up alongside a prescription was an unwelcome contradiction. UHSH, Inc. needed a cold chain packaging solution that protected medication as reliably as EPS, but without leaving patients with a disposal headache.
The Solution
We partnered with UHSH, Inc.'s pharmacy operations team to find a thermal shipper solution sized and configured to match their real-world shipping volumes and the specific 2–8°C, 48-hour payloads UHSH, Inc. ships every day. Together, we landed on TemperPack's pre-qualified Green Cell Foam™ Qualified Shipper in a 12x10x12 configuration.
The turnkey kit includes Green Cell Foam insulation, a corrugated outer box, and gel refrigerants. It arrives ready to pack and is backed by qualifed thermal test data from TemperPack's on-site ISTA® Thermal Transport Lab. That simplified validation for the UHSH, Inc. pharmacy operations team.
Just as important, Green Cell Foam is TÜV-certified home compostable. Patients can also dissolve it in the kitchen sink. The packaging disappears in seconds. No more bulky Styrofoam taking up space in the garage with nowhere to go.
Our goal is to deliver an exceptional patient experience from the moment a prescription leaves our pharmacy to the moment it arrives at a patient’s door. TemperPack's Green Cell Foam solution helped us achieve that by providing reliable cold-chain protection while removing a significant disposal burden for our patients. It was a practical solution that aligned with our operational, patient-centered, and sustainability goals.
Results
UHSH patients no longer have to figure out what to do with a Styrofoam cooler. TÜV-certified home compostable Green Cell Foam dissolves right down the kitchen sink or in the garden, eliminating the disposal challenges.
Pre-qualified, validated test reports simplified compliance for UHSH's pharmacy operations team.
At 15,000+ shipments a year, UHSH displaced 7,578 cubic feet of EPS by using Green Cell Foam instead of a similar EPS cooler. That’s the equivalent volume of waste as 3.2 standard 40-foot shipping containers.
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