Q: I am interested in current examples of companies who offer service training, but who place an expiration date on it. These may include certain dialysis, ventilator, anesthesia, or other medical equipment. If you have examples of technical training that expires, please send me copies of either training certificates or emails from the company so that I have something to post to show the world who these players are.
A: Welch Allyn had us do that this year. We needed to attend training to receive the Gold license which is good for a couple of years. Now this year we had to redo the training online in order to attain the license for the next few years. The training evidentially expires when the license expires, but is available at a reduced rate of course.
A: Dräger Breath (Alcohol) Analyzers.
A: Maquet requires technicians to renew certification on ventilators every other year.
A: Sounds like a good reason to not buy any ventilators from them.
A: I am apparently missing something here. If a medical device is complex enough to need certification to work on it why wouldn’t that license/certification expire? As a patient, I want some assurance that the person that is working on critical devices has up-to-date training.
A: Certification by the manufacturer has nothing to do with the complexity of the device. It has to do with maintaining control and earning revenue because they are no longer making money for service. A service technician does not lose their skills to repair something in two years, especially if they are working on it regularly.
A: It is not a problem to keep techs up-to-speed or stay certified on a device by keeping up on it, but is it right to keep making them pay for it? Sure it is their time and no time should be free, but if they want to make us keep up with the equipment by continually (every year or two) showing us improvements or add-ons, or upgraded info, that is fine, I will accept that. But not the cost that comes with it.
A: Working for manufacturers we had annual training and we only worked on our equipment. Supposedly this was an ISO/FDA requirement. There was a cost to the company to do this training. So, if the company making money from servicing the equipment (hospital or ISO) isn’t suppose to pay for the training then who is?
A: In my opinion, if the manufacturers were that concerned about proper servicing of their equipment after training they would automatically send technical service bulletins to those who have attended training. I would be interested to find out if anyone has received any TSBs with or without requesting them. I have only had one manufacturer send TSBs after a request and zero manufacturers send them automatically.
Q: Would it be reasonable to advise halogen surgical lights are obsolete?
A: I would say that it depends on which model lights they are, and how long ago did they become obsolete? Case in point, the Skytron 58 lights. The bulbs are still available by various vendors, but almost all of the parts themselves are no longer available. The final blow was the glass diffusers and polycarbonate dome covers being obsolete, then scarce to find, and finally unobtainable. Without them, the light is useless and dangerous. Otherwise, they’d probably still be in use today, even though they’re over 20 years old.
A: Just because it is halogen does not deem a device as being end of life. Case in point, the Steris/Amsco Examiner 10 lights are still supported, still manufactured and still being sold after 30 years and are still utilizing halogen.
Q: Do I have to replace batteries for my medical equipment as per manufacturer recommendations? How do I justify if I do not want to?
A: Batteries are the same as anything else that you do to a piece of equipment. It is about the equipment, its function, the function that the batteries play, the effect if the batteries fail, and what supporting evidence that you have is to justify not following the manufacturer’s recommendations. Could you defend your decision in a court of law? If not, follow the manufacturer.
A: Unless you can prove why you shouldn’t, yes.
A: Preventive maintenance is subjective at best but at the heart of any full coverage program is the necessity to prevent unnecessary downtime along with keeping cost of ownership low. How you arrive at the determination means identifying methods which may mean you adopt a policy of time, criticality, or run to failure depending upon your comfort of risk associated with the failure of the battery while in use.
A: For life support, imaging and ultrasound you should follow the manufacturer recommendations. In the past, I did work for some hospitals that wanted to replace them only if they failed, but my feeling is if you order something with a battery than you should maintain it. I have been involved with several power failures over the years, where we lost both normal power and emergency, so having equipment with batteries that were maintained was crucial. I am a believer of following the recommendations of replacement per the manufacturer. We have even changed some items earlier than recommended, because we found out the batteries were failing before the recommended replacement schedule. For UPS units, we have these on a schedule too.
A: To add to this, if your hospital is under CMS, you would need to have an approved Alternative Equipment Management strategy if you were to deviate from the manufacturer’s recommended planned maintenance.
A: As someone who has been deposed for medical equipment failures (not caused by lack of maintenance but by operator errors thank goodness) I can tell you with certainty that a lawyer will dig up all the recommended maintenance requirements and hopefully you will have a good answer on why someone delayed the recommended battery change other than economic reasons. I never really signed off on “predictive maintenance” even though approved by CMS!
THE SHOP TALK article is compiled from TechNation’s ListServ and MedWrench.com. Go to www.1TechNation.com/Listserv or www.MedWrench.com/?community.threads to find out how you can join and be part of the discussion.