By K. Richard Douglas
Duke University has a reputation for academics and athletics. The university’s predecessor college opened its doors pre-Civil War, and today, the university is known for its research, national champion athletics and the beautiful architecture of the buildings on its campus. The university offers baccalaureate, masters, doctorate and professional degrees.
As part of the university, Duke Medicine includes the Duke University Health System, the Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke University School of Nursing. Medicine, education and research are core components of the university’s mission.
Duke Hospital is the flagship of the Duke University Health System. The system has a large inventory of medical devices to manage, and the Duke Health Clinical Engineering team includes an impressive team to handle that challenge.
That team includes Senior Director Ben Scoggin, MBA, MMCi; Director of Projects, Quality, and Clinical IT Carley Parker; Director of Operations Grant Smith, James Cole, the operations manager for Duke Raleigh, Duke Regional and Clinics and Daniel Norman, the operations manager for Duke University Hospital.
Parker’s team includes six members. Cole’s team includes three team leads and 10 technicians. Norman’s team has three team leads and 18 technicians.
Imaging is led by Operations Manager Kevin Orr, with 10 technicians on his team. Jermaine Williams is the operation manager for equipment distribution and has two team leads and 10 technicians in his group.
The team’s mission is to “ensure that equipment used in patient care is safe, available, fully functional and cost-effective,” Scoggin says.
The department has responsibility for more than 75,000 covered assets and that number is growing.
The group’s leadership and technicians manage the entire life cycle of the medical equipment used within Duke Health, from planning what will be needed in a new construction all the way through to the eventual disposition of that device, according to Scoggin.
He says that this includes – but is not limited to – project scoping, choosing vendors/RFP participation, initial inspections, maintenance/repairs, cyber risk mitigation, recalls/alerts and incident investigations.
The facilities within their responsibility include three hospitals; Duke University Hospital with 1,048 beds; Duke Regional Hospital, with 369 beds; and Duke Raleigh Hospital, with 186 beds and several clinics.
“One of Carley Parker’s roles is to oversee contract management. Service contracts are associated with devices in our CMMS. This way, everyone can see what is covered and we can track the value of that contract. He and one of his team members, Ethan Hertz, host a monthly meeting that includes the operational leadership of the department,” Scoggin says.
He says that in those meetings, they discuss contracts and warranties that are expiring around 90 days out.
“The real magic, however, is what happens prior to the meeting. Ethan uses our CMMS to review service history and establish a contract value. He also communicates with the team leads and technicians that have interacted with that device or vendor to understand how the experience has been and what the needs were,” Scoggin adds.
What is the level of CE/IT integration within their system?
“We report through the IT structure at Duke Health, directly to the CHIO. This means that our colleagues are in charge of everything from our electronic health records to the various clinical applications used throughout the enterprise. We even have team members that work regularly with the ISO for medical device security and vulnerability mitigation,” Scoggin says.
Lending Expertise Beyond Their Facilities
While the team tackles projects on a large scale with all the assets they manage, individuals from the department also contribute their knowledge and skills away from the facilities they serve. Asked about projects, there is one that Scoggin is particularly proud to mention.
“The first I will mention are medical mission trips that many of our technicians have attended to support surgical procedures in areas that don’t otherwise have those resources. These trips have included places like Uganda, and most recently, Honduras. On a recent trip we were given feedback that one of our technicians, Brian Gore, made things possible that couldn’t have happened without his presence,” Scoggin says.
He says that being a tech in a surgical environment in an accredited U.S.-based hospital can be tough enough, but getting anesthesia and other operative equipment functional and efficacious in a less-than-ideal environment with limited resources is astounding.
“I am so proud of the people from our team that have both gone on those trips and the ones that stayed back to ensure we didn’t miss a beat here at Duke,” Scoggin says.
“Another great story is our department’s involvement with the cardiac monitoring committee and work that we did to collect and assess patient monitoring alarm data in order to decrease alarms without affecting patient safety. Working with the committee, alarms that were considered nonactionable (false or clinically insignificant) had parameters adjusted. This resulted in a 74 percent decrease in nonactionable alarms at our academic hospital and over 90 percent at our two community hospitals,” Scoggin says.
He says that one current and one former team member, Carley Parker and Tracey Hughes, are coauthors of the study and the astounding results that were published in the “Journal of Nursing Administration.”
The CE team has also kept busy with a long list of other projects that have included two “go-lives” that each occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic: Duke Central Tower – new building and the Duke Raleigh South Tower – new building.
They have also been involved with moves and expansions related to the Duke University Hospital, upgrades to sleep labs and many others.
In addition to the important work team members accomplish on medical mission trips, they are also active closer to home, but away from the workplace.
“We regularly attend, and often present, at the NCBA, AAMI and HIMSS. We currently have a team member on the NCBA board of directors,” Scoggin says.
Rising to the global reputation of their employer, the Duke CE team has demonstrated that it is up to the task of being an extraordinary HTM department.
