Posted by Glenn Perry, CBET, 12/31/2008 9:16:00 AM

It's difficult to say how many devices a hospital based BMET should handle. There are three axis of service to think of: P.M.s, repairs, and technology levels. A non-senior BMET may be assigned 100% on a P.M. team and rack-up 200 - 400 service events in a month / 3600 assets in their section. A Sr. Specialist maybe managing a manpower schedule, running interference for the purchasing department and attending to specialized Cath Lab rooms at the same time. They may have 20 calls a month and have 300 items in their section. You may even see a tech with only one or a few devices like a cyclotron. Additionally, in todays business climate, the more you do (successflly and safely) the better you look to the administration. It's not do more with less, it's now do more with better!  There is no average amount that a BMET should be responsible for.  Every asset, even if it is non-medical device may be yours to attend to if it is for the betterment of patient and hospital.          

Posted by Roy, 1/2/2009 5:22:20 AM

I work at a GE account with 7200 pieces in inventory mainly divided between 2 hospitals and several out patient service sites; we have 3 techs and 1 manager. GE likes to run a lean ship!

Posted by Ismael Cordero, 1/14/2009 9:28:09 AM

Establishing a standard number of devices for technicians to take care of is useless, in my opinion, unless we are talking about the same exact type of device in the same exact type of setting and conditions.

Hospitals should perform their own trending and benchmarking over time on the number of devices handled by its technicians, but I would caution that, while it is always possible to make technicians handle an increasing number of devices, this will probably come at an expense such as sloppier work, more equipment failures, and more stress for the technicians.

Money is not the only factor to consider. Employee sanity, work quality and overall hospital safety are also factors which if ignored will inevitably lead to decreased revenue.

Posted by Mike Stoner, CBET, 1/28/2009 3:42:37 AM

When a thermometer has as much weight as an X-Ray Room, something's wrong.  We like to show admin. how much in contract savings we provide.

Posted by David Marlow, 1/29/2009 3:30:45 AM

Many factors need to be concidered, one tech may be plenty for 1000 or more infusion pumps, if they are all similar and they are all brought to his work sit for PM and service.

Another tech may find that 100 complex devices that are of 50 different models / types, in scattered locations, that require frequent maintainence, with very little back up, is more that he can handle.

Posted by Chad, 1/30/2009 5:16:00 AM

I find fault with the above conclusion drawn that average/per tech does not matter. In the ever increasing corporate America healthcare system, I feel we are no longer viewed as a necessity, but more as a necessary evil. We are not considered a profit department, and therefore are not viewed as an attribute for the hospital; however we are needed for simple things such as JCAHO and putting batteries in a ‘broken’ pulse oximeter. Therefore the “Load the wagon, don't worry about the mule” mindset kicks in and then you have one tech with 2600+ pieces including fax machines, nurse call systems (we have two different OEM systems), beds, and TVs to name a few. Allow me some help, and let me focus on real patient related healthcare equipment and stop running this department as an RTF, and let it start actually doing PMs.

Posted by Bruce, 2/3/2009 2:42:57 AM

I can say coming from the stepchild dialysis industry, the nationwide standard was set by the industry giant Fresenius Health Care. 70 hemodialysis machines per tech. The rub was many technicians cover multiple clinics and travel extensively, and they are not only responsible for hemodialysis machines but water treatment systems as well as general facility repairs. So one day you can be painting a wall, fixing a toilet, then trying to get your PM's done. Most PM's can take as long as 6 hours on one hemo machine. A standard of 70 machines may be fine for a biomed tech that has one clinic to maintain but if your like me and are responsible for 4 separate facilities that are wide spread geographically it can be overwhelming.

Posted by Daryl Anderson, 2/3/2009 8:31:51 AM

We encountered this problem about 12 years ago when our biomed staff was complaining of unfair numbers of equipment they were responsible for. It was pointed out that you can't just go by numbers. As for example, 1 dialysis machine that required 6 hours to PM could not be compared to one patient monitor of 20-30 minutes. So we instituted a weight load balance distribution based on average PM and repair times culled from over a 1 year period. Needless to say there were still complaints, but at least as far as PM time it was equitably distributed. Repair time of course has many variables, such as difficulty of the problem plus experience of the troubleshooter.

Posted by Shannon Landsberger, 2/5/2009 10:10:11 AM

Our biomed department divides our equipment by department. We each have 1-2 critical departments, and the other departments are divided equally depending on how much average time it takes for us to maintain the equipment.  There are 3 of us and roughly 3000 pieces of equipment to maintain.  We also factor in the amount of time we spend talking with service reps and the number of urgent calls we get during the day.  When one man has their PM's caught up and no repairs to do, he assists with PM's that someone else may be behind on.  We rarely find ourselves without something to do.  We each have our specified departments, and act as a 2nd when someone is gone on half of that man's departments so that the load of 2 men is never put all on one person.  This balances the load well when someone is gone on vacation, etc..

Posted by OverLoadBiomed, 2/22/2009 10:43:10 AM

There is no good way to determine how many pieces of equipment per biomed is acceptable.This is always an issue for management when they look at adding another biomed to the department.How does one justify another salary to the department. In the old days you would just hire someone without much justification. In the year 2000, things changed and now you have to justify a position by saving the hospital money.This usually means to eliminate a contract or outside service on a device. The only real way to determine manpower is to track all the service calls and separate them into categories of low,med,and high repairs.There are only 8.0hrs in the day and a biomed can only answer a certain number of calls. Once the number of calls are determined,the average time based on low, med, and high can be calculated. The time taken into account with the other duties a biomed completes in a day will then approximate about how many biomeds are needed.

Posted by chris, 2/24/2009 6:56:31 AM

Well I have 2500+ pieces of equipment I cover it's a fools game to think i can do it justice... I have atteneded many work flow seminars and 1200-1500 seems to be the norm, for a straight biomed. If your a specialist per say, Aneshtesia, xray, etc then thats a whole new ball game and needs to be weighted differently.

Posted by Michael Cloud, 3/26/2009 1:07:32 PM

Does the AHA still publish a list of equipment with PM time estimates? I once used the PM times to estimate hours required. There aren't eight hours in the day if vacation and sick are figured in. I forget the standard, HR can help with this. If you figure total PM time, yea I know, we can't devote that much time, but wouldn't it be nice to have the time to do effective PM's, you can further estimate future repair time by taking total repair times from past years. Add these together and figure the hours in a year. It worked for me, I didn't get all I asked for, but I did gain, instead of losing techs as was planned by the pencil pushers. Good luck to all from an old CBET. Mike

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