By Nathan Proctor | Thoughts on Innovation
When you show up for a medical procedure — from a long-overdue MRI on a balky knee to emergency heart surgery — you likely aren’t thinking about the technicians behind the scenes who keep the necessary equipment working properly.
In fact, you probably expect that doctors will have the working equipment they need to get you healthy as quickly as possible.
But when hospitals have to rely on manufacturers to service their equipment, too often, broken equipment doesn’t get repaired in a timely manner and that can delay crucial patient care.
Biomedical equipment technicians (biomeds) and healthcare technology managers (HTMs) are the invisible line between a successful procedure and a cancelled appointment or sudden patient transfer.
These are the people who service broken medical equipment — but when manufacturers refuse to provide these professionals the parts, tools, or manuals they need, repairs can stall.
Arizona PIRG Education Fund surveyed more than 100 medical repair professionals and our new report looks at how repair restrictions have changed since our report in 2020 that detailed the impact of repair restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are the main findings:
Biomeds report that manufacturer repair restrictions, especially barriers related to the software in medical devices, increase equipment downtime and create delays in prompt patient care.
Approximately 83% of biomeds report that equipment downtime increases from repair barriers either “somewhat frequently” or “most of the time.” Furthermore, 70% responded that they “commonly” experience diagnostic tool restrictions causing a delay in prompt patient care.
Restrictions on repair materials are more likely to cause delays in rural settings. Rural hospitals are under incredible pressure, and across the country, many have stopped providing in-patient care or have closed entirely.
When looking at the responses of biomeds who more frequently serve rural hospitals, concerns about the impact of repair restrictions grow more pronounced. Rural respondents are more likely to “commonly” experience impacts to prompt patient care from repair restrictions.
Biomeds view Right to Repair as a step toward improving care for patients. It is fairly uncontroversial to assert that removing restrictions to fixing medical devices will reduce repair and maintenance costs for hospitals and other medical facilities.
The overwhelming majority of medical device repair professionals we surveyed, 94%, believe that patient safety would be improved by enacting Right to Repair reforms.
Third-party repair is critical to the functioning of the U.S. healthcare system. When manufacturers restrict the competition for repair markets, consumers are left with higher costs for their care. And while it’s annoying to not be able to fix your phone, it’s much more costly — in terms of finances and health — when important medical equipment goes down and can’t be fixed quickly.
Manufacturers should provide hospitals and their technicians with the parts, tools and information needed to service and repair the machinery that can help people get better or even save lives.
Editor’s Note: Nathan Proctor is the senior director of Arizona PIRG Education Fund’s Campaign for the Right to Repair.
