Manufacturers' recommendations have always been the starting point for clinical engineering departments' maintenance process. But over the years, the Joint Commission — which accredits the majority of U.S. health care facilities — allows maintainers of equipment to deviate from these recommendations as their experience warrants. Biomedical engineers are permitted to judiciously decide if and how often they need to maintain devices that are lower-risk to patients.

In a story posted last year, George Mills, the Commission's director of engineering, told DOTmed News that the process is safe and reliable for both life support and non-life support equipment and that there has not been one adverse event associated with their protocol over the past 17 years.


Biomedical engineers are worried that if the CMS rule is enforced, it would require more manpower and present a financial burden on hospitals' already strained budgets.

CMS has not given any indication as to when it would issue a final rule, but many suspect it will happen soon.

Lawmakers who support following the manufacturer's recommendations for preventive maintenance are asking CMS to go through a formal rule-making process, which means giving the public a chance to comment before anything is official.

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