Maintaining an ECG Machine

Maintaining an ECG machine

It is common sense to apply all preventive maintenance procedures that are recommended by the manufacturer.


Also, if your machines are not under a contract of service by the supplier. It is highly recommended that you have a service manual that will help you pinpoint machine defects and solutions of such defects. Sometimes it is also a good idea to try to contact the supplier about a certain defect that is not mentioned in the service manual. In addition, there are some parts of any machine that might have recurring defects, in this case, try to have a spare part for any urgent cases.


If you have more than 5 ECG machines then it is also recommended that you have spare batteries, thermal heads, ECG leads, etc. Depending on the numbers of ECG machines you have and based on the expected life of such parts.

       
Make sure that ECG machines are operated by nurses that are well trained and know how to handle common errors from the machine. It is highly recommended that you apply training sessions on a regular basis to make sure that all operators are using the machine effectively and safely. In almost 80% of reported ECG machine problems, the problem was with the misuse of the ECG machine by the operators.


This might be hard to do but is worth doing, try to make a spreadsheet with the ECG machines you have and history of preventive maintenance applied. Also the history of defects and the cost of such defects. In some cases, you will notice that even though you have the same machine certain machines are getting more defects more often! In this case, you might suspect that there is a misuse problem or simply due to the fact that a certain department uses its ECG machine more often.

Remember collecting data about your machines is not as important as analyzing them. As in some cases, you might come to the conclusion that a certain machine is having high maintenance costs and thus you will be able to decide that this machine is not worth keeping. So you will be able to recommend a replacement for your machine with a newer more advance and cost-efficient.


Long downtime for any machine will be at a high cost in the medical field. To provide the best quality of care many measurements should be taken to be able to serve patients and ensure that their health is the highest priority.