I’ve had a few e-mails lately from biomeds concerned with possible layoffs and outsourcing. What can you do? I received an e-mail in response to our March feature, “Design Your Day,” about starting your own ISO. While this article was not about outsourcing but about stepping out on your own, our reader did respond to it based on his experience with ISOs. As you read his comments, please keep in mind this is not meant to cast aspersions on ISOs, but he has shared his frustration and some thoughts, which I hope will stimulate dialogue among you that will yield some “best practices” on how to cope with the possibility of outsourcing. Also, have a look at our April feature, “Managing the Budget Crunch,” that also has some tips on this topic.

The e-mail I received says, “The e-mail I sent you reflects my frustration with this business model from the perspective of a hospital biomedical engineer when decisions of this nature are made by the administration. This is a very technical field and requires working with equipment that is unique to my hospital on a day-to-day basis to provide optimum support. Unless the third-party organization has a lot of integrity and views their position as an advocate of the hospital, it is not a good investment for the hospital. Please feel free to use my comments as it may save some organization from a painful learning experience about the nature of these contracts, or at least motivate them to examine what it is they are receiving for their money.”

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We recently started a new e-newsletter, Monthly Top Ten, which highlights the articles most frequently accessed for the month. In both February and March, two articles about The Joint Commission and its standards were in the top 10. Coming soon in 24x7’s April issue, Matthew F. Baretich, PE, PhD, has written an update on the 2009 Joint Commission Standards in our "Focus On" section.

Matt says, “The Joint Commission has begun implementing its Standards Improvement Initiative, which has broad implications for all of its accreditation programs. Here we are going to focus on changes in the Environment of Care standards for hospitals, particularly those related to medical equipment management.”

In addition to new scoring and renumbering, Matt says, “The Joint Commission has already begun making more changes in wording and even creating entirely new EPs without the comment periods usually provided.”

How does your department plan to handle the notation of these changes and the dissemination of information to those affected by the new standards? We welcome your comments.

A number of months ago we had a poll on our site that asked if readers had any interest in designing or modifying medical equipment. More than 50% simply said yes, and 31% said they would be interested if it was in cooperation with their employer or an OEM.

Have any of you done this on your own? Have you designed or modified anything through enlisting the support of your employer or OEM? What worked to get them on board with you? What was the overall result? Comment on this blog and let’s get the design wheel in motion!