When Southeast Alabama Medical Center (SAMC) in Dothan, Ala, was looking to implement a real time location system (RTLS) to track assets in their hospital, they took a step we mostly associate with HR departments looking into a new hire—they checked references.  

“When we started talking to a few of the references, they gave us a few of the key takeaways that they’ve learned, like how to set up a map to be more efficient,” says Scott Lapham, senior network engineer at SAMC. “By hearing what other people are doing, you may or may not go down that route but it at least gives you that thought process to make sure you’re thinking about everything that comes into play.”

When it came down to making the decision, the hospital had a lot of honest feedback to work with from others in similar situations. “We heard good things about certain vendors and we heard bad things about vendors and we had to take that into account regarding our unique situation,” Lapham says.

In addition to helping them choose the best RTLS, it also opened the door to a working relationship with peers. Since every hospital is in a unique situation, Lapham used RTLS as a common bond. “The way I look at it is it’s nice to be able to talk to your peers not necessarily from a reference standpoint, but to see their pains too,” he says. “A few people that we’ve talked have said things about what they’re looking at tagging that we hadn’t even thought about. It's a reference call but it’s more of a relationship with our peers trying to learn the whole process.”

How does your team connect with other biomeds and hospitals one-on-one, and what’s the easiest way to break the ice? We invite your suggestions.

In the April issue of 24x7, our “Beyond the Boundaries” article discussed the idea that in these changing times clinical/biomedical engineers who broadening their thinking can find new approaches to better support patient safety. One way to do this involves making rounds and participating in multidisciplinary teams.

Have you done that? Have you been on a patient safety committee or team? What did you learn?

Share your ideas with us by commenting here, you’re ideas are welcome. Thanks!

J. Scot Mackeil, a CBET in Plymouth Mass shared a best practice for repairing cable housings. 

Scot says: “To repair nicks and tears in cable housings I recommend amalgamating tape. West Marine sells this labeled as ‘rig wrap’ and it comes in black, grey, and white. You can also search Google shopping to find it—a lot of vendors come up. It wraps on like tape then cures into a rubber seal. It is also good for strain relief augmentation. I have also seen and used silicon based ‘rescue tape’ to do a temporary seal on a leaky filler neck on my van. I would be interested to know if anyone is using it in biomed land.”

Have you used rig wrap or rescue tape? Comment on this blog and share your ideas. Do you have a different best practice? Share it by e-mailing me at jkirst@allied360.com - Thanks!

Don Hang works in a clinical engineering department in Ohio and has seen some areas that could work a lot better with a little design help—only he’s not sure how to go about it. He’s hoping his colleagues out there have some ideas.

For instance, Don says that “instead of four wheels that go any way they choose—often resulting in fighting a cart to the destination clinical engineering department, he would like to be able to utilize a lockable, steerable wheel caster on larger instruments like anesthesia, neonate/infant incubators, warmers, etc to make the heavy carts move down hallways like a patient bed.”

Don adds, “I service a variety of equipment that needs to be moved from the use area or department to our service department. Travel includes hallways, elevators, ramps up or down, many of which are busy with other carts with patients, visitors, and now the ‘scooters’ or ‘buggies’ some folks use. When you are moving through you do not need the bother of steering and controlling a larger, heavy wheeled cart. If the wheel caster unit on one end or the other would be made to lock, it would make turning and steering so much easier. With beds they are able to set a ‘steer’ mode and this makes control easier.”

Any suggestions on how to implement this type of design? Comment here with your ideas.