A Sticker's Worth

A Sticker is Worth a Thousand Words
or those of us in the biomed profession, the sticker or maintenance label that is applied to a medical device can be — and usually is — a controversial thing. There was a time when the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) required stickers; currently, however, each institution and individual department is allowed to define and use this tool any way it chooses. Therefore, a great deal of variation is possible.

(Please note: The inventory number is its own entity and is not to be confused with the subject of this article.)

This small, sometimes multicolored label has the potential for communicating good and bad, understanding and misunderstanding. What kind of data might you find on this tool? Let’s look at some possibilities:

• To give no data — no sticker
• To describe the maintenance interval of the device
• To identify a future date of service and or maintenance
• To give information about what was done to the equipment
• To identify an individual who provided some service
• To identify devices that do not belong to the institution but are here for evaluation, on loan, rental, research, or patient-owned
• To allow a clinician to determine if a device is OK to use, based on the policies of the institution
• To flag a device for scrutiny by a JCAHO surveyor
• To identify one type of management i.e. periodic maintenance, and not others

All of this data can be coded in such a way that only a few people can interpret it or that anyone can read it. It can represent a shorthand record of the equipment documentation at your institution. Some equipment-management programs incorporate some of the aforementioned data into the inventory number label. Data elements that seldom — if ever — change, could be printed onto a label as follows: inventory number, serial number, model number, interval, classification, associated components, building/location and owner cost center. All or none of this can be incorporated into a bar code for scanning purposes.

In the final analysis, this tool is a visible yardstick by which your equipment-management program can be measured.

At one end you have no sticker, which means that your program is invisible at the point-of-care. At the other end is full disclosure, which demonstrates that the equipment-management program is taking full responsibility for a continuum of equipment service and documentation. In the latter situation, stickers and records must correlate consistently — a sometimes daunting task.

Since we have full control, how can we use this tool to add value to our medical institutions and, ultimately, the patient? Does your current equipment-management program earn a star when JCAHO and other regulatory agencies come around or does it comes away from their inspections with a black eye? Would you say your equipment-management program is visible? If the answer is a resounding ‘Yes,’ what degree of visibility works best for your organization?

When determining your program’s visibility, consider this: Who is the audience you want to reach with sticker and or inventory label data? Is it BMETs, nurses, doctors and other clinicians? How about owner/managers, surveyors, patients, administrators, manufacturers, third- party service/supplier companies and equipment movers? The answers determine the openness or the coding of the data. The amount of equipment inventory data that is in the hands of the BMETs in the field can help define what data is placed on the device and on which label. Also, the responsibility of the equipment owner to keep up with inventory should be considered. In addition, what do we want our readers to know, and what can we back up with equipment records? The variations are endless.

I believe that a well-thought-out plan for labels and stickers is an important part of any equipment-management program. Such a plan needs to reflect the current condition of your program; as a result, it must be flexible to allow for changes as your equipment-management program evolves. A well-worded and accurate policy on this form of documentation is essential and ought to be reviewed regularly. Updating sticker information in a timely manner is easier now than in the past, thanks to the printing technology available today.

I am interested in your thoughts on this topic and would like to hear how other equipment-management programs handle the sticker/label tool. I encourage you to voice your thoughts in this forum so that, collectively, we might better manage the technology in our charge.

Steve Guerrant, CBET, is a biomedical equipment specialist and Periop Section leader in the clinical engineering department at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. E-mail him at guerr001@mc.duke.edu.