EBME Forums Forums Maintenance Technical Assistance 'Do not break me' label

In these differcult financial times especially here in Ireland we are trying to find ways to prevent accidental equipment damage.
Our Clinical Eng Dept would like to adhere a warning label or sticker reminding the equipment owner to 'take care of me'.

Can anyone please recommend a suitable answer and supplier please.

The cost of the labels and the time spent applying them will not prevent any accidental damage so is pointless!

Better to spend some time performing an assessment to find if there is anything contributing to the accidental damage. E.g. mounting equipment on unsuitable stands and tables.

If applying a simple label could reduce accidents then you can be sure the insurance companies would insists every car had one fitted!

"Sticker maintenance"?

You could try DG.

As Mike rightly suggests, you can never eliminate accidental damage entirely. But here are a couple of suggestions about how you can manage the situation:-

1) Round up and remove all surplus equipment (get rid of the junk and the clutter)!
2) Get as much of it as possible under the care of your Equipment Library.
3) When kit gets broken - send a bill to the Ward (etc.) - even if payment is only "notional"!
4) Keep up to date with your PM (but you're already doing that, of course).

Sound advice Geoff,apart from a comment I would like to make about you suggesting they get as much kit as possible under the care of the Equipment Library.

There is one major drawback to an Equipment Library. Our experience is that sometimes you have a Nurse whose mindset appears to be that they don't 'own' the device and therefore 'someone else' will look after it after it has been used.

We contiually remind staff to look after devices and I do present Senior Nurses with bills for damaged equipment.

To be honest I am not quite sure what the answer is other than continually trying to keep on top of the problem with good housekeeping, advice to Nurses, warnings and training etc.

I can state one thing with certainty - stickers won't work.

Yes Mike ... it's the usual story with anything that is supposed to be shared - lack of any "pride of ownership". You often see the same careless attitudes at work in other areas (car pools, "social housing", etc. - and in our own context:- equipment "loaned out" into the "community").

But at least with an Equipment Library any abuse soon comes to light (and can then be dealt with), rather than just being hidden away at the back of a cupboard somewhere.

Hello

Our Delivery ward labelled much of their equipment with a label saying "Please be careful I cost £.." This seemed to help in the short term.

Lee

Labels do have limited success but the best approach is make sure the ward gets physical charged for spares. If you don't staff get complacent that they'll either get the kit replaced or fixed without it coming out of their departments budget.

Also you need your equipment library manned, assigning a room to keep equipment in doesn't work as you'll find they'll use it to dump broken equipment in or just won't bother to recharge the equipment in there.

The labels were an extra measure not an alternative to charging for physical damage and running an Equipment Library.

Lee

New Sticker, "Break Me, you Buy a New One, Your Choice" We have a policy were we will not repair/order parts against a machine that appears to have been mishandled, dropped or any other physical damage unless it is accompanied with an Incident Report, signed by the department head and Director of Nursing, this has reduced a lot of Physical damage, especially to the beds. We are getting requests for quotations from individuals within the hospital for equipment/accessories that has been damaged or lost, Strange times

Whilst at the National Guard Hospital in Jeddah, label in OPD

" Any person breaking the equipment will be shot at dawn "
...English and Phillipino, not Arabic


problem solved

Magic Kingdom 1982-1988