Log in

What You Need to Know about Maintaining Complex Medical Equipment

Posted

As the years progress, the need for advances in medicine grows. It could range from developing a new vaccine to making sure each corner of the hospital is wheelchair accessible. Health care facilities need to make sure that they provide the best quality service for their patients.

Medical facilities must see to it that their equipment is always in tip-top shape. These are the redeeming factors of what can make a patient's experience positive or negative. Not to mention, it can also save their life.

Why do we need these medical equipment?

The average life expectancy of people has grown over the years. During the early 1900s people usually didn't live past 50. Now, we hear about more centennials who still manage to live active lives.

People are healthier now because of our advanced health care. Medicines are more potent and the facilities are better. The equipment we have now can detect the smallest anomaly in our internal organs.

Two of the most useful and sensitive equipment a healthcare facility can have are the MRI and CT scans. They help you see things inside your body. [Having a full-body scan will detect] fractured bones, blood clots, and even monitor cancer, [as well as tumors, aneurysms, and heart diseases.]

MRI scans use radio waves and magnets while CT scans use X-rays. CT scans are more affordable, widely used, and faster. MRI scans on the other hand provide better quality images. This is why the latter is preferred if you need a detailed image of organs, ligaments, or soft tissues.

There are several other equipment like automatic insulin and IV machines that have made medical procedures more efficient for both the patients and the medical staff. This is why some procedures that used to take several days and manpower now only take a few hours with a machine.

How to maintain your medical equipment

For your equipment to perform at its best, you need to have regular maintenance. This is necessary so that there will be minimal breakdowns and it will be at full functionality.

There are three kinds of maintenance; planned, corrective, and routine.

  • Planned maintenance is used to deal with equipment failures before they happen.
  • Corrective Maintenance is used to restore any failed pieces of equipment.
  • Routine Maintenance is usually done every week and it involves cleaning or lubricating the parts.

Failure to properly maintain your equipment can result in the following:

  • Re-scheduling of appointments
  • Unused materials will be wasted
  • Unnecessary overtime of staff (due to unexpected downtime)
  • Early disposal of equipment or machinery
  • Aggravating the medical concerns of the patient (due to stress, misdiagnosis)

MRI and CT scan both require regular maintenance. They need good quality parts that are changed constantly. The MRI for example has coils of conductive wire that produce its magnetic field.

There are different types of coils that have different purposes. The average life of an MRI machine is 7 to 12 years. Within that time you will have to change your coils more than once.

The coils are quite expensive. They can be as much as $120,000.00. Buying from an Official Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) can also add to their price. According to directmedparts.com, buying from a third party is more cost-efficient. Using a third party also saves time since they usually have the parts in a complete set.

Other parts of the machines that need regular maintenance are the cables. Several medical equipment being used today rely on them for power. Cables that rely on fiber optics need to be stored properly since they are prone to breakage. Larger machines have heavy-duty wires, but these must also be handled with care.

Another aspect of equipment maintenance that is gaining importance is cybersecurity. Modern equipment is mostly networked to make it easier to send and receive patient data. These machines can be hacked; like RF-enabled insulin pumps. They can be programmed to give too little or too much insulin to the patients.

Hacking medical equipment is inconvenient to the staff, just like what happened in the UK with the WannaCry Ransomware. It disabled the country's healthcare system and cost 92 million pounds. More importantly, it puts the health of the patients at risk. Giving more than the prescribed amount of medicine can be fatal.

Setting internal usage and quality standards, as well as developing a maintenance team, can ensure proper medical equipment maintenance. The team has to be efficient and they need to follow a strict schedule to address whatever repair the equipment needs.

Our medical advancements come at a price. We may have powerful equipment that can improve the health of patients, but we also need to care for those machines. Maintenance is very important and it can be costly, but in exchange for quality service, the expenses are worth it.

CT Scan, Health Care, Maintenance, Medical Equipment, MRI, Patient, tips

Comments

No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here