Assess the true value of your PPMs - certainly - a very good practice - just look at the OEM service reports and watch what the visiting engineer does, you may be surprised !
Carry out PPMs internally - do it yourself, why not ? - save your hospitals a fortune, we do with ours, about 80% of the modalities we find can be maintained wholly in house - if you are looking to take first steps, need information, case studies, procedures, service reports examples or just some advice feel free to get in touch.
Ive worked for one or two manufacturers and on a few systems all over the world, GE, Philips, Siemens, CGR, Shimadzu, Toshiba, Sorodex and Picker, between us, even more, theres plenty of good gen to be had - youre welcome to it
QA - almost totally seperate from PPM now
Periodic Internal and external independant QA picks up on most issues
How many X Ray Engineers turn up to do a PPM with in beam test equipment or Ultrasound Engineers with QA Phantoms - pretty rare these days
In the event major components or adjustments are required, independant QA is usually carried out post task
Medical Physics will follow our engineers in after a CT tube change
Although a lot of equipment these days has modern control equipment, smaller and reliable etc, As Geoff suggests, you will never get away from the fact that X Ray Equipment especially will always need a good old fashioned PPM - Heavy tubes, Motor/Gearboxes, Bearings, Bowden Cables, Chains. Counter Weights, Springs, Balances etc.
Trusts are finding it is within their ability to conduct PPM to a good standard in a lot of cases
Darren
