Most Valuable Biomed Department (September) - Sinai Hospital

By Carissa Gurney

Sinai Hospital is an American private hospital based in Baltimore, Maryland, that was founded in 1866 as the Hebrew Hospital and Asylum. It is now a Jewish-sponsored ANCC Magnet and teaching hospital that provides care for patients in the greater Baltimore City, Baltimore County and surrounding communities. Building upon its Jewish heritage, exceptional clinical strengths and history of service, Sinai will emerge as a unique institution in the Maryland health care marketplace and be a model for the nation by being a comprehensive health care provider.

Clinical Engineering Staff at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore

Michael Buckheit - BMET III Imaging

Michael Mendoza - BMET II

Irick Peradilla - BMET II

Vincent Chan - BMET II

Alex Orpiano - BMET II

Ryan Smith - BMET II

Ryan Jones - BMET II

George Sarong - BMET II

Noel Duclayan - BMET I

Eric Nieng - BMET I

Jim Arrup - Electromechanical Tech

Nathan Abella - Electromechanical Tech

Corporate / Management Staff at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore

John Knapp - Corporate Director for Lifebridgehealth Clinical Engineering & Transportation Services

Robert Kozak - Manager of Clinical Engineering at Sinai hospital of Baltimore

Ira Ackerman - Biomedical Team Leader at Sinai hospital of Baltimore

Sean Stran - Clinical Engineer

Lisa Wilson Young - Manager Capital Equipment for Lifebridgehealth

Q: What specific roles does your biomed department have in the hospital?

The clinical engineering/biomedical staff maintains medical equipment throughout the hospital and offsite locations. We perform preventive maintenance and repairs on approximately 9000 devices for a 370-bed facility in Baltimore Maryland.

Q: What are some efficient strategies your department uses to maintain the equipment, while also dealing with hospital upgrades, projects, etc.?

Our current strategy to maintain the equipment is to make sure that our scheduled monthly Preventive Maintenance work is spread out evenly throughout the year, taking in consideration vacations and such with the staff. We schedule our techs with specific tasks throughout the course of the month. Those tasks involve answering, shop repairs and scheduled PM days. Projects/upgrades are handled by staff that are caught up with their PM’s and we utilize the techs scheduled for Shop Repairs for those projects and upgrades.

Q: Are there any fun projects you are currently working on in the hospital?

The hospital is in the midst of renovating the NICU, a Hospice unit, and some inpatient rooms to make way for a recent merger with another local area hospital in Baltimore. There are also plans to build an outpatient destination center to house Outpatient infusion, radiation oncology, and an ambulatory surgery center.

Q: How does using third party repair companies like Avante Health Solutions assist your biomed department?

Using 3^rd party companies like Avante Health Solutions helps ease some of the repairs on certain medical patient monitors that our staff cannot get parts for nor have the expertise to repair. It also helps with getting equipment back into the hands of our staff to treat our patients on an efficient turnaround time. It’s nice to have 3^rd parties to lean on and count on for these more complex repairs so we can focus on more of our day to day challenges.

Q: Feedback on your positive experiences with using Avante Health Solutions, patient monitoring division.

Avante Health Solutions has an incredible customer support team and very quick turnaround time for our broken patient monitoring equipment. Whenever we needed quotes on replacement equipment, our account manager is right on top of getting the information we need. We have utilized Avante Health Solutions, formerly Pacific Medical, for years and will continue to partner with them due to their expertise in the medical equipment repair field.

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