by
John W. Mitchell, Senior Correspondent | May 05, 2016
From the May 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“Something that has been a big help for me is the new tablet technology,” he says. “I’m able to follow the checklist criteria, inputting pass or fail, and make comments. The tablet translates it to a PM test report that generates for the customer and I’m finished.”
Automating processes
Smaller devices with increased automation and recording are among the things that characterize the recent evolution in medical testing equipment, according to Jonathan Gaev, MSE and CCE, business line manager for BiomedicalBenchmark, a biomed inspection, preventive maintenance and best practices database service at the nonprofit ECRI.
As budgets and staffs get smaller, these innovative systems are poised to make a big impact on reducing health expenses while also increasing patient safety. The emphasis is on designing helpful features with an eye toward better compliance and productivity. Manufacturers have heard the call. Smart, portable, interoperative and multifunctional tablet technology is increasingly emerging to simplify the process of health technology maintenance.
Curt Harkless, CEO at Radcal Corporation in Monrovia, California, empathizes with the pinch on biomedical engineers, who he says are increasingly pressured to perform faster and more efficiently. His company specializes in radiation measurement solutions that aim to meet the needs of biomeds and the providers they service. “You’re seeing interoperability standard in a lot of products now, from thermostats to cameras,” says Harkless. “In analyzing customer workflow, we find there has been an overall shift away from instruments using text display where you write the results down, to getting measurements and putting them into a tailored [electronic] report to help lower costs.”
Tampa, Florida’s Rigel Medical, which manufactures a comprehensive range of advanced-technology biomedical test equipment, is also focused on streamlining the management process. Jack Barrett, the company’s national business manager, says his customers take its test reports and attach them directly to the work order so that the data is traceable and the possibility of errors is smaller.
Rigel Medical’s testing equipment, such as a compact electrosurgical analyzer called UniTherm, is designed to be easy to use while also speeding up the testing process. The internal memory in the equipment also uploads to any computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) without the need for a separate computer to capture data during the test.
