The theme of this topic is one of great concern that has serious impact to the healthcare customers served. The weight of decision on the HTM service professional’s shoulders with many times little support or no direction from their leadership is growing a bubble of disaster with severe implications. This bubble has been there for some time and its inflation has changed shape and in some cases luckily been deflated. Unfortunately, that deflation exit may not occur much anymore and a bubble bursting may be on the horizon. If you’re loved one or possibly you happens to be the patient – look out!
The bubble being referred to is the ability to provide the appropriate service and maintenance required in order to meet the designed baseline condition and ensure the safe and proper functionality of the medical device. The root cause to this growing bubble concern stems from practices by some but not all as to how medical equipment service and maintenance strategies are developed and carried out. An emphasis placed on “meeting budget first” with quality and appropriate service protocols taking a further back seat in the bus and in some cases not on the bus at all! This method or strategy has been occurring for some time in the medical equipment service industry. It has been masked over for the most part up to now because capital equipment replacements were more frequent and many of those “troubled devices” were able to exit stage left hopefully before a disaster may have occurred. Those days are long gone – ask your local sales representative of any capital medical device if their annual sales volume numbers are softer than they were five years ago. It is a fact, the majority of medical devices are and will be staying in the active clinical inventory longer and worked harder more now than ever by almost a factor of 100!
The theme of this blog and expanded future versions to follow speak to an out of control problem the HTM field technician and service engineer are increasingly confronted with on a daily basis. That being the repair of medical equipment which may have “unattended to” and “existing” problems associated with it in addition to the most recent service call that was just assigned. Existing problems that may have been tabled due to “budgeted funding” or lack of authorization to proceed with good practice in providing the right fix. I can only say this – at the end of the day I sleep much better knowing a device repaired under my watch was serviced properly and in accordance with its OEM design for safe and functional operation. Always remember, the medical device you are assigned to repair or maintain could be used in the diagnosis or treatment of a loved one or perhaps yourself – would you accept anything less than perfect?