Journal Article

BRIGHT IDEAS: Making a Small Change to Fix a Big Problem

Stern, Gavin

2017

Overview

The Biomedical Services Department at Lexington Medical Center in West Columbia, SC, has a big job. The team of 13 biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs) service approximately 16,000 assets, including 700 infusion pumps, 1,700 pump channels, and 100 patient-controlled anesthesia modules throughout a 428-bed hospital, 60 physician practice locations, six urgent care centers, and two ambulatory surgery centers. Among this multitude of equipment, it was the 540 physiologic monitoring command modules that posed one of the more frustrating and potentially dangerous healthcare technology management (HTM) issues for the hospital in 2012. Marking all 540 physiologic monitoring modules took about a year and a half. The effort to improve communication between HTM and other hospital departments ultimately paid off for the departments and the hospital. Now that the initiative is in full swing, Michael Chisholm, a BMET at Lexington said he rarely gets called for improperly configured blood pressure alarms.

• Publisher: Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, AAMI
• Subject: Anesthesia / Blood pressure / Command modules / Departments / Health care / Health care facilities / Intensive care / Monitoring / Patient safety / Surgery / Technicians