Medical Facility Management Breakdown Avoided, thanks to maintenance advice
A medical facility narrowly prevented a major crisis, thanks to advice from a reliability-centered maintenance expert.
As featured in Health Facilities Management magazine, a hospital administrator spoke about a situation several years back when teamwork and strategic equipment repair helped to avoid what might have been a complete collapse in several wings of a hospital.
He describes managing a medical facility that was built on an old property and used old equipment. Unfortunately, breakdowns occurred constantly. He spent most of this day rushing to solve equipment failures. Constantly, he missed staff meetings and ignored patients in order to resolve maintenance issues. It seemed like repairmen couldn’t work fast enough to provide a smooth workflow.
Finally, a vibration analyst was able to provide some insight. After inspecting the air conditioning system, his team detected severe weaknesses in the construction of the medical space. They hired a medical construction team to replace the bearings and shaft. After a short day of work, the air system was running smoothly without interruption and there were no other breakdowns.
Upon closer observation, the construction crew noticed severe decay in some of the structural pieces that were removed. Forensics determined that the bearings and shaft were on the verge of falling apart.
In another few months, they might have been looking at a complete equipment failure that would have taken days to fix.
What is Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM)?
A reliability centered maintenance program is a monitoring system for all equipment and utilities in your medical office. It checks for weaknesses, safety issues, and cost-effectiveness.
A vibration analyst troubleshoots mechanical equipment using data from vibration, temperature, noise, and imagery. To keep your surgery center or other medical practice running smoothly without interruptions, it’s a good plan to have such an expert as part of your facility management team.
Do you need to make the call?
Do you need to call in an expert? If you manage a medical facility and have been experiencing recurring mechanical breakdowns in air circulation, filtering systems, or other basic maintenance failures, then it may be time to call a qualified medical construction expert. Our experienced team can check for structural flaws and recommend simple modifications, so you can get back to work.