Nursing and Rehab Products, Service and Repair |
Electrical Safety Inspections: - The origins of the Standardized Electrical Leakage Tests goes back to the early days of electrical equipment in the Operating Room. It was found that while a single device such as an electrocardiograph, exhaustively tested by itself and found to be “safe”, when used in combination with say a motor-driven aspirator; by itself also tested to be “safe”, the combination of the two could prove to be lethal. When this was researched, it was found that each piece of equipment “leaked” a minute amount of electricity, which, because the patient was thoroughly grounded and especially vulnerable due to the sub-coetaneous operation, added up to become a dangerous dose of electrical current. Underwriter’s Laboratories pioneered the study of this matter and wrote Standards limiting the maximum amount of ‘Electrical Leakage’ that should or could be allowed for Medical Equipment under various situations. Today almost all cord-connected equipment use a third wire cord and plug to “drain” any “leakage” safely to ground. There remain however, two concerns that are especially important in a medical environment where multiple devices may be used in relation to a particular patient. First – since the third wire is part of a flexible cord and subjected to wear and tear – what if the third wire alone fractured? In this case all of the “leaked” electricity might now seek a path through the patient and there would be no appearance of any problem since the remaining two wires would still activate the machine. The second concern follows the first: In such a case, how much would the maximum allowable “leakage” be? The answer was to specify a maximum allowable amount of current (usually less than 100µ amperes) for various classes of Medical Equipment, and to require that all cord-connected Patient Equipment and Outlets be inspected regularly to assure correct polarity and that multiple bad cords was a statistical impossibility. This is the reason that Electrical Safety Inspections have become institutionalized.
Bundled Equipment Inspections for Nursing Homes: - Since Electrical Safety Testing is a periodic requirement necessitating the use of special test equipment, and also because insurance underwriters seem to sleep better knowing that this is looked after by a third party, nursing homes often subcontract their Electrical Safety Inspections. Medicanix caters to this by bundling Physical Medicine equipment calibrations, Electrical Outlet quality checks, and Patient Scale calibrations with this service. Documentation and the application of dated labels on the tested items is included in this service, which is vital to compliance with the Standards.
Pressure-Care Mattress Systems: - Medicanix is now launching a new sales and service initiative. In 2008 a new line of decubitus ulcer treatment and prevention mattresses and pumps will be introduced. This initiative will fully support the nursing facility by not only introducing high quality, aggressively-priced products, but also a facility-support system including on-site stocking of spare mattresses, cells, and pumps and additionally a mattress cleaning, recycling, and product-restoration service. A new service facility expansion at Medicanix’s Stamford location is underway with completion expected before February 2008, in order to fully support this initiative.
Additional Services: - There is also a need for maintenance, repairs and rechargeable battery replacements on a considerable variety of items including Oxygen Concentrators, Feeding Pumps, Patient Lifts, Motorized Scooters and Wheelchairs, Patient Bathing Systems, Patient Alarm systems, Continuous-Passive-Motion systems, Vital Signs Monitors, and such like items. Often there are only one or two copies of a particular item at the facility and it becomes the odd thing out – the item that just doesn’t fit into the routine of the maintenance staff’s daily duties and as a result the home is deprived the benefit of an expensive capital investment for an unduly extended time period.
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