Posted by VSarmiento, 1/28/2009 12:32:48 PM

In my 30 years experience working in the biomed world, I have not seen, encountered any standards nor regulations that addresses this question.

Having a back up inventory of any critical piece of equipment mostly depend upon on the hospital's complexity.  Its core values, chosen field of medical specialties, and mainly its financial status normally will dictate if the local biomed dept. can afford to have and maintain any backup instrumentations.

Instead of retiring and discarding old equipment, the local biomed can overhaul them, putting them back to the original product specifications is an approach I implemented during my time as a local biomed eng'r.  This is a good starting point to develop an inventory of back up equipment that the facility can put back in service during emergency needs.

Posted by VSarmiento, 1/28/2009 12:46:02 PM

Second -  keeping a list of nearby reliable hospital vendors that can provide back up rental support on needed equipment. Vendors that are capable of delivering with-in an acceptable time frame and just a phone call away,

Third - Back up support can also be pre-arranged to come from another nearby hospital (via networking), or from other 3rd party service providers / organization.

Posted by D.Taylor, 2/19/2009 1:34:43 PM

I support the anesthesia machines at our hospital, which about 350 beds. We have 10 surgery rooms, each with an anesthesia machine. However, one room in the main O.R. is a Bronch room where mainly local anesthesia is given. two other machines are in our O.B. department. I mention these three rooms because they are not always in use at the same time. This allows me to quickly troubleshoot the problem machine and repair if I have the parts on hand. If I need to overnight the parts and they need the room, it's anesthesia machine shuffle. This usually buy's me a day until I can get the machine repaired.If the day occurs that they are using all the machines and the shuffle can't occur, the surgery staff are well aware that they would have to back up cases in the rooms that are running. Then , depending on how much downtime will allow, I will either order the parts or call out the manufacturer who can bring the parts if he has them. The concern with manufacturers today is that their FSE's don't stock all the parts either. They have reduced the stock rep's carry to save money. Therefore, they will have to make a second trip and the machine will be down a day anyway. Some manufactures will not allow the FSE to bring any parts until they have come out on site and diagnose the problem.