Preventive Maintenance

The biomedical engineering department in a hospital should take responsibility for establishing an equipment safety program. Such a program should conform to safety regulations established by government agencies and professional organizations. The program is necessary to ensure the safety of patients and health care workers in the hospital. Specific regulations must be met in order to secure accreditation and license to operate.


The instrumentation described in the preceding sections is used to make safety tests and to ensure safety in the hospital. Here we present a sample program in order to discuss the issues involved. A specific safety program would need to be geared to a particular clinical situation and would of course differ from that described here.

There are many instrument, medicines, and procedures used to deliver health care in a hospital for the benefit of patients may also present hazards. In order to protect patients and health care workers, hospital regulations have been developed to cope with hazards of electricity, radiation, magnetism, toxics, infections agents, pressure, flame, heat, explosion, and energy interruptions.


Preventive maintenance is done on medical equipment to make sure that it is safe and in proper working order. The inspections necessary to ensure that safety specifications are met are a part of the preventive maintenance procedure. Furthermore, equipment should be inspected to ensure that is calibrated accurately. Physicians use the output data from medical equipment to make diagnoses and to prescribe treatment of disease, so inaccurate data from the equipment can clearly lead to serious mistakes. Preventive maintenance can protect a patient by reducing the likelihood of these mistakes.


Preventive maintenance procedures are recommended by the manufacturers of equipment and are usually given in the equipment service manual. Every biomedical equipment shop should have a program of regular preventive maintenance that goes beyond the basic safety checks described in the previous section.


The frequency of preventive maintenance depends on how vital the instrumentation is and on the frequency of observed failures. Preventive maintenance of equipment used to maintain vital functions such as patient blood circulation or breathing should be more frequent than that of equipment that does not come in contact with the patient. Also, if a particular kind of equipment is observed to fail frequently, it should be scheduled for more frequent inspections.


In spite of all precautions taken, however, equipment will fail. In fact, certain parts of equipment are wearing parts, and, like automobile tires, must be changed periodically. X-ray tubes, chemical electrodes, and air filters are examples of wearing parts in medical equipment. In any case, when the equipment becomes inoperative, it is necessary to do troubleshooting and repair.


Note : Better IF have a good maintenance log book system schedule. That writing at preventive maintenance check list