The healthcare delivery environment is sure reeling in change with an enormous amount of downward pressure to cut costs just to survive. In all of these efforts to become more “efficient” and “thrifty” with spend, is it possible some corners may be cut or decisions as to “quality of the repair” are more ledger sheet driven with patient safety taking a back seat? Well, I hate to be the pessimist or bearer of bad news but this element of concern is occurring in some health systems within this country!
This past week I read an article in a well-known national newspaper that spoke about a recent federal government change in the public reporting of when hospitals leave foreign objects in patient’s bodies or make a host of other life threatening mistakes. This change, which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) denied last year has apparently “very quietly” been implemented in the last month, which in turn now there will no longer be publically available reports. You have to ask yourself why? Is it maybe the data supporting these reportable events was not reliable or possibly not relevant to a patient’s clinical outcome? Is it possible with the new and future downward financial pressures on healthcare providers and the measures of reduction many of them are forced to take in order to stay solvent that possible mistakes or unfavorable clinical results would shock and cause panic with the public?
So you say, “What does this have to do with the servicing of medical equipment?” As HTM service professionals we are responsible to assure all medical devices are functionally correct, safe and in accordance with their original equipment manufactured specifications before returning them for patient use. Possibly you may now be asked or instructed to “move the repair along” or lessen its “quality” because of financial availability at the time? Let me share an experience, there was a budget administrator I ran across one time whose comment around an identified medical device performance deficiency that was shared with that person went something like “you know, if you look into it you may have to do something about it”. Well, I looked into it and did something about it – that something was fully repairing the device to meet OEM specifications before returning it back to clinical use. Could you imagine being knowledgeable of an identified medical device deficiency and not addressing it because of a ledger sheet number but still allowing it to remain in clinical use? There is some scary stuff going on out there folks!
This new era of healthcare delivery and the financial pressures affecting it are producing opportunities for improvement as well as significant areas of decision concern. As HTM service professionals be cognizant to these dynamics as they will affect you in your ability to perform and provide a safe patient environment. If it does not feel right take a timeout, think about it and do the right thing – remember that medical device you service or have oversight to has your signature on it and could very well be used in the care of your loved one!
