I write this blog after sitting the past three days sidelined in Sothern California ( ok , not a bad spot to be) as my return flight home to Chicago was affected by the recent air traffic control (ATC) center fire that occurred this past Friday, September 26th. This ATC fire mishap shut down three major Midwest International airports – Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway as well as Milwaukee’s Mitchell not to mention snarling up the country’s air travel system. This sudden halt in the airspace of the Midwest, cancelling nearly 2,000+ flights was clearly visible not only on the ground, but take a peek at the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) publicly published air traffic radar snap shot of September 26th and you will see in the middle an empty large round circle pretty much covering several states!
As all of this was going down this past Friday morning, the first thing I thought of was the FAA will just “flip the switch” to the redundant ATC back-up location and they will take over assuring my flight will take off at noon as scheduled. Surprise! I received an email message from my air carrier informing me all flights for the day in and out of Chicago have been cancelled and the next available flight could be Sunday morning. They advised me I should confirm this new flight availability quickly as there are only three seats left! Apparently, there was not a redundant back-up to the ATC site affected by this fire. Oops!
Well this “nugget of experience” is something that we as HTM service professionals need to build into our service and maintenance strategic thinking processes. What are the system redundancy plans of the medical devices you may service and provide oversight too? Are there “true redundancy” pathways that can be switched to in turn avoiding single point of failure scenarios and paralyzing the patient care delivery process? Don’t cop out and say, “Well that isn’t my yob! Make no mistake, it is – as HTM service professionals your customers are relying on you to be that “critical thinking expert resource” who can help them divert disaster!
Well, back to my story. It’s Sunday morning and I am packing it up in route to the airport – the airline tells me all is a go. I hope so, because if not my next stop will be to the laundry mat as my supply of fresh clothing has run out…
