EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management mains cables and leads

Should we track mains cables?

alex

hello there... are you really asking that question? if you have the time by all means track your mains cables but then maybe you should just come over and work with us and give us a hand in the shop.

would love to. send me your email and I will email you my CV. Hope pay is better than MTo2 and above agenda for change

alex

On balance I think that labelling of removeable mains leads e.g. IEC mains type, on a batch-basis (location, purchase date, etc, etc) perhaps, is probably necessary and a more practical method of proving that leads are being visually and/or electrically safety tested. Tracking of individual mains leads is probably not a practical option unless leads are permanently attached to the device they're used with, individuals have lots of time on their hands or there is a really good tracking system, already in place, that works. Seems a shame to have high quality systems and methods in place to test the medical kit then ignore a significant source of risk presented by faulty mains leads that are not inspected/tested/managed in a methodical manner.

The IEC leads - which I assume are the ones you are referring to - are tested and labelled by the contractor who comes in and PAT tests all the kettles and toasters etc. You can't class them as Medical Equipment and they get used on computers, CD players, etc, etc, so we let them do it.

They're not allowed near medical equipment with their tester. We've already had one patient monitor go up in smoke !

When we safety test (or service) our assets here we have a label that attaches to the cable as well as the label we stick on the asset. This records the asset number that it was tested with together with test & retest dates. It goes by the catchy name of cable label!

Sounds like a good idea.

we do the same as mark and works extremely well.

We Refuse to accept equipment without the correct cable.

alex

Alex. How do you define "the correct cable" ? Surely you don't expect nursing staff to go rummaging through piles of IEC leads to find one with a matching label ! I can imagine the response we'd get if we suggested they should do that.

I seem to remember these conversations from another discussion recently.
At my last place we bought a couple of thousand IEC leads of a specific colour and replaced all leads with these. After three years we bought some more of a different colour and replaced all the old ones. So no lead was ever over three years old. The users were taught to look out for physical damage and to replace the broken leads.
The cost per lead is quite low if you buy in bulk and it only occurs every third year. It saves a lot of man hours in looking for and testing leads.
We also had a reel of cable to make special length leads.
This worked well, saved us a lot of hassle and mean we could be sure the leads were relatively new and therefore likely to be in good cndition.
Robert