The Messy Medicine Miracle Turnaround
Blood spilled on USC's ultrasound system & their Director of Operations feared the worst. Find out how the issue was resolved without breaking the bank.
A full bag of blood spilled on Keck Medicine of USC’s GE Vivid E95 ultrasound system. This 400-bed top-ranked hospital specializes in the most acute patients, but even state-of-the-art systems can’t prevent accidents. Spilling a full unit of blood isn’t the craziest thing that has happened in an operating room.
A Potentially Costly Mishap
Jesus Lopez, Director of Operations, Biomedical Engineering, recalled a time when a unit of blood was misplaced within a rapid infusion blood warmer, “The bag wasn’t inserted properly. When they turned it on, it overinflated and ruptured the bag. There was blood spraying all over the room. It looked like a murder scene.”
Jesus is the one that gets called when their equipment stops working. In this case, the team had cleaned and disinfected the ultrasound machine, but all Jesus knew was that the machine was offline.
Jesus called the OEM and asked them what could be done to resolve his issue. They told him the unit was “toast” and it was time to buy a new unit. Jesus knew that meant a six-figure unplanned capital expenditure. Thankfully, that wasn’t Jesus’ last call, he knew that it was time to call a friend.
A Partnership That Paid Off
Michael Lubliner and Jesus have had a long relationship. Mike is an Account Executive at MXR Imaging and Mike is backed by a company that specializes in all aspects of medical imaging. When the gauze hits the fan, you call someone you can trust. Mike checked out the damage and was confident that this was a quick and easy repair.
MXR Imaging took on the assignment, but let’s just say the MXR repair team saw nothing easy about the task ahead. (Read a step-by-step account of the ultrasound repair process). The clean exterior of the downed unit belied what the team saw when they opened up the ultrasound unit. Blood was literally caked on and required taking the unit down to the component level. The process was painstaking and required cleaning, disinfecting, testing and sometimes replacing every component.
The unit was rebuilt and looked as good as new. Jesus was quick to complain about the $30,000 repair bill, but the truth is that he couldn’t hold a straight face. This was a big win for him and the hospital. The cost of repair was certainly less expensive than buying a new unit, but this also allowed him to quickly get back online, and that unit is still in service today.
Trustworthy & Reliable Service
MXR Imaging can’t always work miracles but when there is a medical imaging problem, our expert repair services provide reliable solutions. USC Keck specializes in amazing medicine and sees its doctors relying more and more on medical imaging and that keeps Jesus on his toes.
When asked if anything has changed in process or policy to alleviate future spills, Jesus was clear that the priority is the hospital's patients and as they rely more on imaging, mistakes are likely to happen. He was right. Eventually there was another blood spill, and MXR Imaging fixed that one too.
Don't cry over spilled blood! We have you covered. We will customize a service solution for all of your imaging equipment, no matter how messy the resolution is. Contact us today!
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