Thursday, July 3, 2008

Ambulance Transported Equipment - Need bio-med check?

When a piece of patient care equipment is used in an ambulance transport of the patient, does the equipment used on the patient have to be checked out by the bio-med before being put back into service? The equipment left our site, went to a different hospital and then transported back to our hospital. My understanding is once it leaves us we have to have it checked out before returning it to service.

2 comments:

Maine Healthcare Engineers said...

To my knowledge the Joint Commission does not mandate performing any special service on a piece of hospital-owned medical equipment that has left the hospital as described by Cody. The only exception to this would be if a hospital's medical equipment management plan states that, under this circumstance, they require the equipment be checked out before being put back into use within the facility. This is in keeping with the Joint Commission's policy/standard stating that the hospital must follow the guidelines set forth in it's own medical equipment management plan.



If someone can find something different or that I misread the standards please let me know otherwise.

Maine Healthcare Engineers said...

Mike, I think you are correct but it would be prudent for the safety of patients and staff to do a check of the equipment before it is used even if your policy does not say so!