title: Prioritizing verification checks and preventive maintenance.
abstract: The role of the equipment technician has not changed in 30 years, but the equipment and the staff using it has. It is clearly time to update our procedures and methodology. Some of these time-consuming PM tasks yield no measurable benefit to neither our industry nor to our customers. All of the additional requirements placed onto us recently indicate that our customers' needs have changed and negates our obsession to place inspection stickers all over the place. We need to adapt to the changing environment and become the technicians of the 21st century by abandoning long, outdated practices such as mindless monthly inspections. We are valuable to our customers and our employers for what we know--not what we do. Not just anyone can walk into anactive operating room theater and find a bad patient cableon the spot. We alone can control the work that we do. We are the pinnacle of all electronics repair with the duties and responsibilities that go along with it. Isn't it abouttime we acted like it?
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Maxwell
mesh_terms: D001698:Biomedical Engineering / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D004868:Equipment Failure; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis / Q000379:methods*; D004869:Equipment Safety / Q000379:methods*; D008283:Maintenance / Q000458:organization & administration*; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014481:United States