EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Controlling access of Company Reps to Ward Staff

Hi All
I work in a Fair sized organisation, 7000 staff, 1300 beds etc and of late we have been having increasing probs with "shop floor" staff [forgive the term - please] being approached by agents selling (quote) "better or cheaper products". The intial outlay maybe reduced but long term these often prove to be expencive follies. We have also evidence of some companies providing products directly, some have even bypassed all of our financial and supplies processes, including basic pre comissioning checks!
To the point - Does anyone out there (companies included) have "Codes of conduct" for these (sometimes uninvited) Visitors, whilst on our respective properties.
Mark

Mark, Louis has worked in 3 different establishments and is now “The Don” of his current residence (applause please). Louis finds it is almost impossible to stop these chaps displaying their ware directly to the staff. Usually they “WILL” make an appointment with the relevant bod. Yours is obviously a large hospital, to try and seize control of this situation will probably soak up a lot of your valuable time. However, we have made it a disciplinary offence for a member of our staff to receive any medical equipment without going through the proper channels first. Yes I agree there are always going to be mavericks out there, surgeons in particular, but Louis has found that a good EBME profile is an excellent start to getting these chaps on board.

LIII

Cheers Louis, any body else any alternatives, come on company guys and galls - have you anything to say?
Mark

Mark,
Cant say ours is perfect but we have put in place a medical equipment policy that outlaws completely the type of activity you mention.
If someone does get past the door into a ward etc it doesnt get them anywhwere anyway as all purchases have to be sanctioned by ebme, ppq vetting etc if we dont approve of the purchase we fill in the relevant boxes and hand over to purchasing boss.
The person who really needs to get to grips with this issue is the purchasing manager. They need to draw up policy for tender and supply that makes the professional user in no doubts that they are up before the beak if anything untoward happens and makes any supplier realise that indemnity will be issued and used if something should go wrong. All this linked into a successful risk management team seems to work, that said our risk managers are ex nurses so they do know what goes on and where.
Im sure some people still try to get their own way, but if there are written statements of whats right and whats not there is no getting away when the proverbial hits the fan. Its all about covering ones back again, a subject that rears its head all to often these days. And as suppliers of a service ourselves we have to make headways into the overall set ups of our trusts and make sure people outthere dont just see us as oinks that fix bits of wire and things, but as a technical service who are there for their assistance when purchasing something. Look at the IT&M teams that have developed over recent years. Im sure noone would think of buying their own PC to use in the hospital.

In our trust, all purchase orders have to be countersigned by a budget holder, ie very senior nurse. Thanks to the love and respect they hold us in, biomeds are involved at this point.

Reps don't seem to bother with staff they can't get orders from.

Moira

Unfortunately this does not get around the issue whereby a rep has deposited a loan, or demo unit, even a unit FREE-OF-CHARGE.
However I, personally, am very sceptical of these so called free items. I truly believe nothing is free.
So employee's may be reluctant to 'let go of these items' and tend to hide em out of sight, if fear of these item being re-possesed or taken out of service.
We generally ask for represenatives to complete an indemnity form on behalf of their company.
This all said and done, we still occasionally get one or two slipping through the net.

Chris-H

EBME involvement, PPQ forms, internal procedures, etc etc - all completely worthless when reps can call into Wards and departments and "give" them some incredibly useful piece of equipment which will make their lives so much easier and avoid all those tedious delays in getting results back from the Path Lab - and all they have to do is order the disposable bits that make it work !

Easy !

Roy,
Once again the purchasing manager should have a procedure for seeing new suppliers and goods.
You can scoff all you want systems and procedures are there to be observed.

Roy, my blue hairy friend, who analyses the contracts, who approves the Wonga?

L3

P.S. there is a nice article on this magnificent Cyber Spectacle (link on the on the home page) it is entitled
Acceptance Testing of Medical Equipment.

web page

Read it

L3