Comments on: Why Is My Medical Equipment Failing? https://24x7mag.com/maintenance-strategies/power-management/why-medical-equipment-failing/ 24x7 Magazine offers in-depth coverage and the latest news in Healthcare Technology Management, serving as the premier resource for HTM professionals seeking industry insights and updates. Wed, 24 Feb 2021 21:17:39 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 By: Matthew Du Vall https://24x7mag.com/maintenance-strategies/power-management/why-medical-equipment-failing/#comment-329634 Mon, 20 Apr 2020 20:01:29 +0000 https://www.24x7mag.com/?p=366096#comment-329634 Back in the early 80’s when I was learning to be a BMET, my Mentor always swore that power needs to be monitored. He would always demand a 1:1 transformers for all of the Central monitoring stations in all department that had the. We almost never had a down from a power supply issue. .
Since the advent or switch mode power supplies have in the late 50’s the basic power supply was going to be phased out. Hitting it strong in the late 70’s. There had been a noticeable harmonic noise causing a power imbalance for older LIM systems on the ground. “My understanding it was for removing the spark potential due to flammable anesthetics gas” because of no WAGD systems.
Seeing an imbalance we would get alarms for what seemed to be no reason. They would shut off the equipment and the alarm would clear. We would analyze all equipment in the room looking for the unit causing the problem and not find it. We were looking for high ground leakage not harmonic noise. The LIM systems had to be updated. We stopped finding tape on the alarm silence buttons.

Shaking the replaced ground cord caps plugs is one of the first thing I teach all of my people.

]]> By: J Scot Mackeil CBET https://24x7mag.com/maintenance-strategies/power-management/why-medical-equipment-failing/#comment-327826 Tue, 18 Feb 2020 22:45:53 +0000 https://www.24x7mag.com/?p=366096#comment-327826 So Power Quality is an old school problem that has been with us since the dawn of the medical electronics age.
Power quality monitoring and troubleshooting is one of the great skillsets BMETs should have IMHO. it can really pay big dividends.
Jude Russell from https://powerlines.com/about is the real subject matter expert on power quality issues in healthcare. I recommend her highly.
For me, where I once worked we had a 60+ bed installation of networked patient monitors and central stations. Each monitor and central and network node point was protected by an ONEAC 1:1 transformer or a UPS with an 1:1 isolation transformer on the output. Both line and ground was isolated off the grid. My Spacelabs rep was always amazed that I had almost zero electronics failures. I followed the Novell Network guidance white paper for power quality in distributed computing systems to the letter. as a result over time I more that paid back the costs of paying $300 per device for the ONEAC units. I did the same with my Gama Cameras and saw similar reductions in failures. look for articles and guidance published by Judith Russell from Powerlines. Also when a cord cap is present, never forget to give it a good shake and listen for rattles, I cant tell you how many times over the years I have found loose lugs disconnected grounds, broken and mis wired connections etc. There is a lot more to power quality than simply plugging stuff into a UPS.
learn how and why your hospitals power system works. at the very least a good Biomed shop will have an Ideal Outlet tester, A woodhead receptacle tester and a good clamp on ampmeter with a current shunt to test basic power quality issues. BMI/Dranetz makes a decent power line analyzer too.

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