Oftentimes overlooked in the exciting change to a new or expanded facility is the transition of your existing medical equipment to the new space. Sure, your new space has new technology infrastructure, the size of the area has increased, and it’s a fresh new building with new amenities and new equipment, but unless you have started from scratch, you still have a significant amount of existing equipment to bring into your new space. That’s when your transition plan is ready to execute, provided you have a medical equipment transition plan as part of your overall transition plan.

At the forefront of every move is patient safety and care. Redundancies and contingencies must be considered and be part of the medical equipment transition plan. This requires communication, coordination and collaboration across multiple departmental lines. This is the part that you must get right.

With that in mind, your medical equipment transition plan needs to detail which device moves, when the device moves and the logistics needed to accomplish that move. The medical equipment transition plan requires identification of the devices to be relocated and will need to coincide with your overall transition plan and move schedule. The integration of device identification with overall schedule is then combined with assigned responsibilities of the move, which is the logistics of the relocation of the unit.

Our experience in various transition settings demonstrates that MERC has the expertise to coordinate and manage medical equipment transitions. For example, we supported the transition of over 5,500 pieces of equipment from The Children’s Hospital (TCH) of Denver, Colorado former downtown location to its new replacement facility seven miles away. Tracking details down to individual pieces of equipment were kept to know the what, when, who, and how factors of all of their equipment. This required a team-oriented approach with the equipment planner, Bio-Medical Engineering, the Move Team, the Moving Company, hospital departments, and various vendors and other entities.

At the JPS Health Network’s new Patient Pavilion, a 230,000 square foot project in Ft. Worth, Texas, the MERC team was tasked with move management of a number of departments and the transition of hundreds of units of medical equipment. This management required ongoing coordination, communications, and the tracking and verification of devices to facilitate the process. The effort culminated with the final move of departments into the new space over a week of phased moves. While some moves were quite simple, the management of a complete relocation of their Level One Trauma emergency department, which serves Ft. Worth, Tarrant County and a few surrounding counties, represented a complexity that had to be carefully planned and executed to maintain patient care.

The transition of medical equipment at TCH and JPS went smoothly and without incident, both in terms of patient safety and the care and handling of equipment. At MERC, we understand how to handle each stage of the process and provide the needed insight and service to you regarding the transition of medical equipment. Please give us your comments or contact us if you would like more information about our services. Thanks again for stopping by!