Mitigating environmental risks goes beyond making sure that safety procedures concerning hazardous materials removal are strictly followed to the bare bone basics: is the equipment clean? "Does the person getting rid of the equipment have to certify that it's being cleaned and sent to sanitize?" Webster asks.

"Recently, a company removed a piece of equipment (for a customer) and about a week later, one of the guys came down with a really bad case of pneumonia. Everyone's convinced that the equipment had not been cleaned."


Landfill alternatives

What happens after the vendor removes the old equipment depends on an organization's preferences. Practices that are concerned with the afterlife of their existing equipment should determine how their vendor will dispose of it, and be sure that any requirements for disposal, such as recycling, are specified in the contract.

Donating medical equipment to organizations that can't afford modern technology is a worthy option that requires careful planning. Holly Frew of Atlanta-based non-profit Medshare International points out that there are several aspects to consider before making a decision to donate large-scale or technologically complex machines.

"The best thing to do is research the organization to make sure they can handle your donation. It's important to make sure that they have the properly certified people who are able to handle whatever the equipment is," she stresses. "The key thing is making sure that you are donating to a qualified organization that matches up with the needs of whatever equipment it is that you want to donate.

When we take donated equipment, we make sure that it works. Our biomedical engineer spends a tremendous amount of time refurbishing any equipment that's donated to us . . . making sure that we have the chemicals or parts that are needed to make the equipment functional."

Many OEMs have donation programs or work with charitable organizations to facilitate training and installation of radiographic equipment. "The demand is everywhere," Frew says. "We cannot get enough equipment donations to meet the demand and the need that exists around the world because we deal with developing countries, hospitals that are in great need. Some of the hospitals we don't ship to don't have the infrastructure or funds to purchase surgical gloves. The demand is across the board."

The Boston-based American Medical Resource Foundation (AMRF.com) donates refurbished, fully functional equipment to agencies in need around the world, and sends qualified technicians to install, train and repair the equipment on-site.

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