Corporate Blog

Preventive Maintenance (PM) intervals are mandated, by several federal and state agencies and accreditation organizations, to follow manufacturers' recommendations. Critics of these mandates argue that manufacturer-recommended intervals vary by as much as a factor of 2 or more for devices that appear to be very similar in function and design. They question whether recommended intervals are based on meaningful test data or other credible rationale.

The driving concern is patient safety. For the vast majority of medical devices, however, the consequences of device failure are not potentially life-threatening. Out of a total of more than 1,500 different medical devices, only a few—probably less than 25—are classifiable as having potentially life-threatening failure modes. Such devices need to be identified and subjected to special measures aimed at providing the patient with prompt alternate support when these critical devices do fail. Devices in the critical (life-support) category that have non-durable parts needing timely restoration or replacement (i.e., that are PM-critical, lifesupport devices) must be given high priority for timely PM completion. The intervals for this high priority PM need to be set on the conservative side of the empirically determined “useful life” of the vulnerable components.

The vast majority of medical devices benefit little from preventive maintenance and they should be allowed to run to failure unless (a) they have life-threatening or very serious PM-preventable failure modes, or (b) proactively replacing the non-durable parts will be more cost-effective than simply repairing the device when it breaks. Streamlining our PM programs to focus on the devices with high consequence PM-related failures would free up substantial technical manpower devoted to medical equipment maintenance.

This blog post is based on an article published in Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology. Download the full article Manufacturer-Recommended PM Intervals: Is It Time for a Change?