Q I work for a small critical access hospital. I am not able to justify buying expensive test equipment for one or two pieces of equipment. Does anyone know of a restriction that bars the creation of a co-op of sorts, providing a pool of test equipment that can be scheduled like a timeshare? The equipment would be cleaned and tested after returning from a member. A portion of the purchase, calibration, cleaning, and shipping of the equipment would be paid by members when they schedule use. An example would be a $4,000 piece of equipment would only need 20 uses ($200) to be paid off. Small hospitals would have access to great test equipment. The manufacturers would still sell the same amount of equipment because right now small hospitals are either testing using other methods or contracting with a third party to come in and test their equipment.
A While it might work well financially, operationally it would be a nightmare to track the following:
- Is test equipment available when you need it for a PM?
- Is test equipment available when you actually need it for a STAT repair?
- Shipping time to send test equipment from account to account.
- Calibration costs?
- Missing accessories, broken test equipment.
The way I was able to justify purchasing test equipment was to compare what a PM would cost under agreement or T&M and calculate ROI if the test equipment is purchased. There have been times when it does not make sense to purchase test equipment for one or two devices.
A I think that it is an interesting idea. Finding out what can go wrong and setting up steps to prevent or minimize the problems would be important.
A Renting certified test equipment is also an option for small jobs. I know we do some of this.
Q How are you maintaining O2 blenders and who (respiratory or biomed/CE) is responsible for coordination/completion of the maintenance?
A The blenders in our facility are tested every six months by biomed. Routine checks and calibrations such as the weekly user calibration to ambient and 100 percent O2 are performed by the users. Three of our blenders have a two-year factory calibration that the manufacturer does not offer training for, so those are returned for service every two years. The scheduling and coordination for all but the user tests and calibrations is handled by biomed.
A I (Biomed) do annual preventive maintenance to make sure they perform and blend accurately. Every two years I send them off to be overhauled (right now, to Tenacore).
A $350 from USOC, Biomed is responsible.
A In house, CE does maintenance.
A Blenders are tested annualy and overhauled every two years (in-house). If we cannot locate a blender we notify respiratory and they will track it down.
A Service manuals usually recommend an inspection cycle of 12 months. Our policy also states that an O2 monitor be used with every blender, so if there are any issues Respiratory would know right away and pull it out of service. And again, overhaul every 24 months.
A Wouldn’t it be nice if blenders had hour meters, like ventilators? Some blenders that get little or no use are still required to be sent out for overhaul every two years.
Q My HP Sonos 5500 power cord caught on fire and now it won’t power up. I changed out the power supply but it is not powering up. Is there a fuse that I need to change? And, where can I locate it? Or, do I need to change the power cord and how do I do it?
A I am fairly sure you need to change the power cord, and figure out what caused it to catch on fire. The on-off switch acts as the circuit breaker, so that may have shorted out. From there, the AC goes to the isolation transformer. Then, it goes to a Power Factor Corrector on the inside left rear corner of the system, which converts the AC input to 215V for the DC-DC converter. Once you get AC input, you should see the 215V LED is lit, on the bottom right of the DC-DC converter.
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