EBME Forums Forums Management Medical Equipment Management Equipment out of use

At one place I know, there is kit that has lived quite happily on the shelf for a number of years ... on the grounds that "they" (that is, the user) "never phone up about it"! Now, that's what I call prioritizing the work!

Guys, all your points are valid (especially the one about the need - or otherwise - to hold large stocks of spares), and I agree entirely (with Paul) that operational need should be the paramount factor.

But ... sometimes (arbitrary) conditions apply (contractual response times, etc.) and I suspect that John had a specific circumstance in mind when he posed the question!

Uptime? Downtime? Five years, five months, five weeks, five days, five hours, five minutes ...? Five hours for the main x-ray unit may be unacceptable. Five months for kit that no-one wants anyway may be OK (but would "management" agree?).

Johnboy

A possible solution to this is to have a more centralised approach to providing hospitals with EBME services with an EBME dept covering more than one hospital (i.e. bidding for a contract even if the hospital belongs to another trust. How close we are to this I don't know, but I know it's being looked at. (Or are other EBMEs working like this already?)

Best wishes,

Paul.

A National Engineering Service for the National Health Service? Now where I have heard that idea before?

Geoff,

You were right - It was a leading question.

Firstly, I am talking about 'bread and butter' equipment. The stuff we see all the time. Not those one offs that the techs leave on the shelf until the manager 'assigns' it to someone.

If you do not turn around equipment quickly, it builds up in the dept. If there is not enough kit on the wards they will buy more. This increases the PM burden.

I have visited some deptartments in the last 6 months that have over 200 pieces of kit in their depts. They work very hard with a lack of resources, but the PM burden makes things worse. If they had kept on top of things in the first place, things would not be ass bad as they are.

Ass bad ... or bad ass?

The PM burden, John ... where do you pick up these phrases, Mate (perhaps you're talking to the wrong people)? As I've probably said before, surely PM is the raison d'être of in-house biomed departments!

Meanwhile, I have known NHS biomed shops who admitted to being four years behind with their PM! Hardly keeping on top of things there, then.

In the situation you describe, why not just attend to the "awaiting labour" shelf on a first-in first-out basis (that is, just take the next job "off the pile" in the order they came into the shop)? And meanwhile just crack on with the work as quickly and efficiently as you can (and as resources allow)?

When you said "departments", I assume you mean biomed workshops with shelves groaning under the strain of kit awaiting repair ... well, there are ways of clearing those backlogs. Temporary help being one example. Triage being another!

200 bits of kit sitting on the shelf does sound a tad excessive ... if I were in charge, I wouldn't be too happy if it was twenty!

John,

Isn't there a conflict between "working very hard" and having a 200 item backlog. If these were the only two factors at play here it would be a simple matter of employing temporary staff to clear the backlog and starting the techs off on the "right foot" as it were. I suspect that with this amount of backlog that there is more to it.

Best wishes,

Paul.

Yeah, there's a world of difference between "working hard" and "working smart".

And that difference has a name:- it's called "management" (or, the word I like to use:- leadership)!

PS: and John already offers the clue:- "a lack of resources". How come?

A possible answer to this is to have EBME/Medical Physics dept. co-ordinate the procurement and purchase of new kit. This would at least provide an early warning if the wards were buying in equipment themselves.

Paul

More "burdens" on the department, Paul?

Meanwhile, we have money enough to buy new kit ... and yet we have "a lack of resources". Something doesn't fit there somewhere!

Yes Geoff, it would be an additional burden on the department. I suppose I'm quoting from what we do here at New Cross (as I don't get to see the EBME world from a national perspective). Equipment in this hospital is managed with a "holistic" (dreadful new word) approach incorporating: procurement, training, maintenance, modification and eventual condemnation.

As regarding Leadership (good old fashioned word) don't hear that one too often! :

Best wishes,

Paul