MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
• Without reference, identify principles relating
to Maintenance Procedures with at least 70
percent accuracy.
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 Types of Maintenance
 Scheduled maintenance
 Unscheduled maintenance
 Contract maintenance
 Scheduled Maintenance
 A scheduled maintenance program
• ensures optimum performance, safe operation, minimum downtime, and maximum
useful life for each medical equipment
• provides regular servicing, verification of performance and safety, and detection
and replacement of worn or failing components before a serious problem develops
 OTSG establishes minimum scheduled maintenance requirements and
frequencies based on
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manufacturer's recommended frequencies
established industry norms
area of use
experience
patient risk assessment
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 BMETs perform scheduled maintenance at established frequencies
• Increase frequencies when appropriate
• OTSG must give written approval to decrease frequencies
 Two categories of scheduled maintenance
 Preventive maintenance (PM)
 Calibration/certification -- the measurement and adjustment of various device
parameters to ensure its accuracy within prescribed standards
 Preventive Maintenance (PM)
 PM is the systematic care, servicing, and inspection of equipment to
• maintain it in a safe and serviceable condition
• prevent, detect and correct minor faults before they develop into major
defects
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 PM is the joint responsibility of equipment operators and BMETs
 PM action includes, but is not limited to
• Cleaning the equipment in areas not normally accessible to the operator,
externally and internally
• Aligning and tightening all moving components not included in the
calibration procedures, such as doors, drawers, panels, shelves, latches,
casters, hinges, etc.
• Aligning and tightening all fixed components including chassis, stops, door
handles, knobs, motor mounts, etc.
• Lubricating the unit, including motors, gears, bearings, casters, and other
moving components. Use only non petroleum-based, nonflammable
lubricants on equipment that uses oxygen.
• Inspecting and servicing batteries and battery compartments
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
• Adjusting electronic and mechanical components as
necessary
• Servicing all consumable devices such as filters and tubing
• Evaluating how well the user is maintaining the equipment
• Performing an operational checkout
• Performing a general safety inspection and an electrical
safety inspection, as applicable
• Evaluating equipment condition and ensuring
documentation of the accurate condition code
• BMETs will perform PM procedures as prescribed by
applicable references
manufacturer's literature
ECRI Inspection and Preventive Maintenance System
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 Calibration/certification
 Must be performed periodically on various types of equipment
• If the equipment seems complex it probably needs calibration
 Use manufacturers literature to determine if equipment needs
calibration and how often it should be calibrated
 When calibrating equipment you must be aware of what the
manufacturer’s tolerance is for a particular measurement
• Tolerance means how far away from a set value a measurement can be
 When you calibrate equipment you will have to use various pieces of
test equipment to simulate or verify different values
• This test equipment must also be calibrated periodically
• This normally occurs annually and must be done by a company specializing in test
equipment calibration. BMETs cannot by law calibrate their own test equipment
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 Calibration procedures are found in the
equipment’s service manual
• This manual can also be called the calibration manual,
the technical manual, or many other names
• The solution to this is to ask technical support for the
calibration procedures directly
 Calibration is probably the single most important
aspect of your job as a patient’s life WILL depend
on how well you calibrated a piece of equipment
at one time or another.
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
Unscheduled Maintenance
 Unscheduled maintenance is what you must
perform when a piece of equipment breaks or is
just not working quite right
 Ideally if you are performing scheduled
maintenance the way you should be there should
be relatively little unscheduled maintenance
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 There are 3 different priorities of unscheduled
maintenance
• Routine – There is no true hurry to fix this. This category is
intended for work requests where the equipment is not
threatening to life.
• Urgent – This equipment has a need to be fixed quickly. This
category is intended for work requests where the equipment is not
threatening to life, but is urgently needed for a high priority
procedure.
• Emergency – This equipment MUST be fixed NOW. This category is
intended for work requests where the equipment is directly
influencing the continuance or saving of life.
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 Contract Maintenance
 This is where you pay a company to perform the
maintenance for you
 This should only be used when the following conditions
apply:
• The BMETs lack the training and/or knowledge to perform the
maintenance
• The cost of the test equipment and/or training is not justifiable or
sustainable
• The BMET shop does not have enough manpower to support
maintenance of the equipment
MAINTENANCE PROCEDURES
 Even though something is under a maintenance
contract does not mean that you no longer have
to work on it
 The BMET shop must maintain a copy of the
service report for every time the contractor comes
in to look at the equipment
 The BMETs may also be called on to look at the
equipment before the contractor in an emergency
situation