EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance Asset Labels

DaveC, with the equipment that you are looking after, do you put your own ID tag on them and is there an ID tag from the hospital as well

Yep, Geoff, that's the one. I think it is great, we do not only our asset management and work flow stuff but things like invoicing, time sheets, leave requests. Powerful system

Neil, the way we operate, it is our responsibility to manage all the biomedical assets for our clients. To do so we entirely take on the running of the database on their behalf. This includes the addition of our own asset labels (preferred method) but can also allow us to use existing asset numbers by the addition of a suffix or prefix specific to that site. This may be necessary to ensure a unique number exists within the system. All control of the database (additions, decommissions, loans, etc) are managed by us but ultimately the data belongs to the client.

Powerful system. Powerful price!

Meanwhile, the scenario you outline there sounds like the typical "Managed Equipment Services" (MES) set up.

MES is not unknown in the UK. In Saudi Arabia, hospitals are often managed by an O&M (Operations and Maintenance) contractor. Sometimes the contract is to run the hospital in total, sometimes just the maintenance, sometimes just a portion of the maintenance (eg, facilities). Similar arrangements (many and various) crop up all over the world, of course ... wherever contracting out maintenance services is the preferred (or only) way of doing things.

OK ... now back to Asset Labels. As may be well known, I see a lot of donated equipment and also a lot of "previously owned" (typically ex-auction) stuff in veterinary hospitals and places like that. Although I enjoy spending hours every day (or so it seems) removing the asset labels (property tags, whatever) of the previous owner or hospital, I still reckon it is a far better practice for hospitals to remove their labels as they discard equipment (and, presumably, delete it from whichever Magic System they employ)!

Perhaps I should give an "honourable mention" here also to the Electrical Safety Check stickers (usually well out of date, and often going back over many years) I find plastered across the kit every day. These, of course, are stuck on my local sparkies during their so-called PAT testing. I remove them all, of course, deeming my own electrical safety test to be far more appropriate. Then, naturally, I apply our own Serviced By sticker ... which, of course, is far more tasteful, under-stated, and informative!

See this earlier thread for more enjoyable reading.