Medical Equipment Tele- and Condition-Based Maintenance with Enhanced Remote Diagnostic Access (RDA) and Computer Vision
Abstract
The current medical equipment maintenance model is on site and physical, rather than remote and virtual." There is no comprehensive or standardized remote diagnostic access (RDA) capability for biomedical technicians to troubleshoot and resolve problems remotely and securely. Additionally, the current operations model is reactive , rather than proactive, in terms of early problem detection and prevention. The lack of visibility to the health of medical equipment and the need to be on site for problem resolution, coupled with frequent rotations and scarcity of medical equipment technicians, continue to cause considerable downtime of critical medical equipment densities and is detrimental to the health care support to our war fighters. Complex medical equipment such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Computed Tomography (CT), Computed Radiology (CR) scanners, along with ultrasonic and laboratory devices are critical to the patients treatment regimen. Unscheduled delays and/or extensive downtime of the equipment severely hamper the physicians ability to diagnose and treat a patient s injury or medical condition. Complexity often requires the local maintainer to rely on external support or SMEs, many times from the equipment s manufacturer, to assist in the diagnosis and repair. This wait and see method coupled with the lack of any pre-screening capability to identify troubled areas, worn parts, or signal out of tolerance modalities can cause additional delays. While medical equipment manufacturers offer variations of managed-services to monitor and maintain medical equipment in service for commercial installations, these offerings often can only support individual manufacturers own brand and model of medical equipment. Furthermore, their service architecture and the providers infrastructures generally do not comply with the government s security protocols and regulations.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA582061
Entities
People
- David Van