Complete and accurate data is no longer a “nice-to-have” for healthcare technology management (HTM) departments. It’s a “must have.” That is why many BMET and clinical engineering schools now teach their students how to properly enter data into a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS).
“Proper CMMS data entry is an important part of a BMET’s job,” says David Braeutigam, MBA, CHTM, CBET, ITIL, professor of biomedical equipment technology at Collin College Technical Campus in Allen, Texas. “A complete device inventory is not only required by regulatory agencies, but due to the flood of equipment recalls and safety and cyber alerts these days, you must be able to identify the affected equipment in your CMMS for safety reasons. You also should have good historic work order data to refer to for troubleshooting, documenting compliance and your time, and properly managing the equipment.”
David was very successful getting donated clinical equipment for his classroom, and he needed a way to inventory the 1,000-plus devices and document the repairs and planned maintenance his students were performing. That’s when he decided he needed a CMMS to track the equipment, document his students’ work, and use as a teaching tool. However, there was no budget to buy a CMMS.
“I wanted a CMMS that was used a lot in hospitals in this area so that my graduating students could walk right into their new jobs and know how to use it,” says David. “Having that skill makes them even more competitive. I knew that Parkland, Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, GE, and SPBS all were on Nuvolo, so I contacted a friend at Nuvolo.”
David called Heidi Horn, MS, AAMIF, vice president of healthcare marketing strategy at Nuvolo. David and Heidi worked together for years on several AAMI and HTM committees.
“David called me asking if Nuvolo would be willing to give Collin College a Nuvolo instance for free and explained how he wanted to use it in the classroom,” Heidi recalls. “I thought it was a great way for Nuvolo to support the HTM community. I pitched the idea to others in Nuvolo leadership, explaining we could help both HTM schools and the hospitals that hire their students by providing Nuvolo at no cost to colleges and universities with BMET and clinical engineering programs. They were fully supportive.”
Today, there are over a dozen schools using or in the process of implementing Nuvolo to teach students the importance of proper CMMS data entry.
James Linton, professor and program coordinator of biomedical engineering at St. Clair College in Ontario, Canada started using Nuvolo in his classroom in the spring.
“We needed a CMMS not just to learn on, but also wanted one that is used out in the field extensively,” James explains. “How happy would you be as an HTM manager to hire someone who already knows how to use your CMMS? The students like it because it’s modern, and it’s a real-world CMMS.”
David and James use Nuvolo to demonstrate to their students how they can use the CMMS to get the information they need to do their jobs better.
“I show my students that thorough documentation is not just helpful for them,” David says. “It’s going to help someone who will access it in the future.”
James agrees, “Good data entry is just another form of preventive maintenance. I also show them how management is going to be using the data to measure their performance and will be able to see how much time they’re taking to do PMs and comparing that to the time it takes others, what type of things they’re working on, and even their productivity.”
