Q: I was asked by administration to reach out and see how other institutions handle off-hours coverage or do you run two or three shifts of support? Any information or opinions are appreciated.
A: We rotate on-call one week at a time.
A: Most of our hospitals run a day shift. My one large hospital has a second shift, we cover until 10:30 p.m. We do not have everyone come in and leave at the same time during the day, i.e. day shift might cover from 6:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. (on-call technician covers until 5:30 p.m. for sites that do not have a second shift.) Technicians also change hours to get PMs completed before or after normal working hours or on weekends. We do have technicians on-call for after hours and weekends.
A: On-call coverage for all off hours. On-call compensation is $4 per hour with a minimum 4-hours pay if called in.
A: We have a technician on call after hours and weekends (6 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. weekdays and 24 x 2 hours for the weekend). They are paid $1.50 per hour to be on call. If they are called in they are paid for two hours minimum. My folks take call a week at a time.
A: I worked as a BMET at a large hospital in northern Virginia and we always rotated pager on call.
A: We’re in a smaller facility than you are, but our on-site coverage is 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For off-hours coverage I carry a pager and our cellphones are also posted internally. If I am on vacation, my tech carries a pager. Since I am on salary, if I get called in it’s just a part of the job. If my tech gets called in, he is guaranteed a two-hour minimum even if he has the issue fixed in 15 minutes. This has worked well. We’ve only had a few calls in the last year that required one of us coming in.
The last call we had concerned a nurse in our nursing home who ran the battery down in a lifter until it wouldn’t work at all. She wanted one of us to come in and make it charge faster. That didn’t happen, and the nursing supervisor there received a call from us on Monday morning. All of the batteries in their lifters had been replaced within the last 6 weeks, and all of the chargers were checked out at the same time. The nurse’s issue was due to staff (her included) not plugging the equipment in when not in use.
We get to be the final judge of whether or not the issue warrants one of us coming in. We had an issue over Memorial Day where they couldn’t get an ECG trace on a defibrillator. The facility’s spare crash cart had been locked up in a portable CT scanner we were using while our new CT was being installed. I came in and checked the defib out; no problems found. The nurse admitted while I was there that she may not have had the electrodes quite right. Having a crash-cart without a defib that could cardiovert was definitely cause to come in while a dead battery in a patient lifter (when there were at least three others in that wing) was not.
This approach won’t work unless your facility trusts your department to be able to make that call. My attitude is that if they don’t, how can they trust you to maintain the equipment.
A: We have day shift 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at one campus, and 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the other. A swing-shift tech works 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Standby/on-call is from 10 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. (unless the swing-shift tech is gone, leaves early, etc). Call is rotated weekly between five technicians. It begins at 10 p.m. on Monday, and runs until 6:30 a.m. the following Monday.
We get $3.50/hour for standby (on-call) pay. If we get called in, we get three hours minimum. It used to be four hours minimum, but we are (unfortunately) union, and our union is notorious for giving away our money, as long as they keep getting their monthly extortion dues payments. We’re also in the same union/group as facilities/maintenance, and there are 30 of them and five of us biomeds, so our needs are consistently ignored.
Q: How is everyone classifying infant incubators? Are they life support or critical/high risk?
A: They are critical/high risk.
A: It depends on the manufacturer. Following the manufacturer’s recommendation can’t steer you wrong. GE/Datex-Ohmeda recommends an annual inspection of the “Giraffe Omnibed.”
A: We consider them critical/high risk.
A: With TJC there will be no distinction between the two. Critical/high risk, which would contain all life support, would be scored as an A standard, which require 100 percent PM completion.
A: Be aware, CMS wants a separate listing of “critical” equipment. TJC decided to use the term “high risk.” AOA/HFAP has their own requirement, for “life support” equipment. Not all critical equipment is life support. Critical equipment can be any device or system which is essential to taking care of the patient, revenue generating, or required for a test that must be done before you can discharge a patient. Someday, I would hope that all three agencies can agree on terminology.
