EBME Forums Forums Management Modernisation (Formerly, Controls Assurance) Document Storage Software

Geoff
My understanding is that retention of EST results for electric kettles etc is mandatory under the Electricity at Work Act or some other law governing the sparks. I just apply the safety levels for toasters etc as the absolute minimum morally acceptable for patient equipment, EXCEPT where the MHRA or IEC have specified a more stringent standard. In other words I can see no practical circumdstance in which the level of care of a pump or monitor should fall below that you would give to a toaster, whatever the government experts may have omitted to specify.
As for the interest in results, a lot of techies debate whether thay should electricaly test infusion devices with a fluid filled set installed as an Applied Part or whether that is a waste of time. Its definitely a waste of time! I have 25 years of retained test results without a single Applied Part electical failure for an infusion device as proof of that. On the other had I've a few failures for monitoring equipment as absolute proof that they do need AP tests. So retaining the actual results has real usefulness. How else can you risk assess againt evidence that will stand up in court? A Pass/Fail flag is totaly unacceptable. Apart form any legal requirements for retention, a supervising technician has no hope whatever of checking the competency of a junior technician against their stored results if the AREN'T ANY stored results.
It's even possible to get beautifull EST passes for instance while not connecting the IUT to the tester correctly. You can get an earth bonding pass with the IUT plugged into a wall socket instead of the tester if theres a good electrical circuit in room. Looking over newbies test results can reveal a lot about what they are or aren't doing. Looking at little boxes ticked on forms that all say "Pass" tells you nothing.
If anyone asks, "How many EST failures did you get last year and why not just visual check ?" I COULD answer them if I could search within the EST text files electronicaly for the word "Failed". That's why I want a text search program or conversion to PDF.
All the best
Marc

Succinctly put, Sir!

(and I hope that we shall be forgiven for straying from the original topic somewhat)

I like the basis of the position you are taking ("as least as good as a toaster gets").

But ... wasn't there a large NHS hospital in London a couple of years ago who decided that their decades of electrical safety testing (and collection of results) had, on the whole, been a complete waste of time?

As far as I am aware, there is no legal requirement to retain test results, but I would be happy to defer on that point to anyone who can provide "chapter and verse", as it were.

But I take (and accept) your point about the supervision of junior testers!

Regarding "non-electrical applied parts", I too have seen all sorts of contortions taking place as a matter of routine in some biomed shops. How many times have I heard "this is how we do it here"? Again, I reiterate my usual moan about what's the point of having "governing bodies" like the MHRA (and any other) if they don't issue clear and binding directives (not mere guidelines) for all to follow? That should be the one and only pertinent question in court:- "were the directives being followed"? Yes? No? ... guilty as charged!

By the way, I'm sure that I am not the only one who would be interested in seeing a breakdown of your 25 year's worth of EST results, if you would care to summarise them.

Meanwhile, searching plain text files is dead easy, even TS.com (Text Search) as found in the 1984 version of Norton Utilities does that! In fact (looking at it now) it can search any file, complete disk, or even erased file space!

If you want something a little more, er ... modern, then I would again recommend Total Commander. I use it all the time, and reckon it's the dog's whatsits!

The electricians legislation I was thinking of was the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. That's what I used to justify routine EST during PPM. I was told it "didn't apply" to medical equipment but used it on the basis I stated above, The Risk Manager at that time decided not to argue the point in writing.
The MHRA document DB9801 Supplement 1 "Checks and Tests for New Equipment" quotes a major hospital EBME head bemoaning the fact that only 2 new items failed EST in the last 7 years. With new items its certainly well worth considering taking the manufacturer's EST printoff as proof of safety on new stuff (If you don't already).
Thanks I'll look at the DOS software. I like to keep it simple.
Sumarising the results would take too long. Sorry!
Marc

If you're into DOS, you may already be aware that there's a load of so-called legacy stuff available for free download off the web.

You could start by looking here for instance (NU45A.exe is there). And here's another handy one. Depending upon what it is you're actually trying to do, you may even find something useful here (cc-ps201.zip, for example ... but notice that these are Shareware offerings). As I say, there's a ton of this sort of stuff "out there". Why people insist on forking out mega £££'s is beyond me!

But, if you have a little free time to spare, may I suggest that it would be far more interesting to write your own file search program. I would recommend using C.

Turbo C 2.0 and Turbo C++ 3.0 (both for DOS, of course) are also available on-line (as are many other flavours of C ... the language that "real" programmers use)!

Quick question! Has anyone EVER seen an equipment EST potential failure trend over time?

Regards

Ed

As usual, we've touched on this before.

I think someone once claimed they had detected an insulation deterioration over time (and subsequently withdrew the equipment before it failed, became unsafe, or whatever), but I can't find it just now. But anyway, one "trend" detected in n thousand tests ... big deal (and so what)?

Agreed!

Ed

I don't know if you subscribe to the MHRA MDA notices but in regards to MDA/2008/027 on Eleganza and Praktika beds it was possible to spot the adapter leads gradually failing earth leakage.

Cheers Chris! Unfortunately they don’t send them to me here

Like a few others we have finally opted for a pass/fail record! I was just curious to know if there had been a real world example of "trend failing"! Obviously there has and it is noted! Would love to know how many people keep EST records? And how many are happy with a simple Pass/Fail?

Regards

Eddie

In the NHS their sent out officially via the central alerting system, but you can register to receive them directly