Share thisA remote monitoring program can provide a continuous stream of equipment operation data that can proactively monitor problems and expedite solutions.
The development of remote monitoring and its capabilities, such as ongoing predictive maintenance, has been one of the most important advances in sterilizer and washer performance in this decade. Healthcare facilities have been quick to adopt the capability, effectively reducing their equipment downtime, lowering their repair costs, and improving the efficiency of their operations. Other industries, such as lab animal research (LAR), have not been as quick to adopt remote monitoring technology. This is unfortunate, because labs and cage processing areas have unique characteristics that suggest this connective technology could be even more beneficial to LAR operations than it has proven to be in healthcare operations.
Challenges in LAR Environments
Laboratory and cage processing sterilizers and washers are often operated by multiple users, and those users are often students, temps, or other individuals who tend to have a limited knowledge of the equipment. In addition, these operators may not be as concerned about the equipment’s longevity (as compared to a hospital operating room nurse who is personally responsible for her unit’s sterilization procedures).
For the lab manager, the challenge of maintaining equipment at consistent peak performance is compounded by the fact that the equipment may reside at numerous locations across a large campus. This geographic separation can make it hard to establish and maintain consistent, timely, and accurate communication related to equipment operation.
And, as is the case at most facilities where sterilizers are in use, unexpected downtime can have a detrimental impact on lab and cage processing operations. Staff may be unable to change out contaminated bedding, racks, and other animal housing materials on schedule, which can lead to a host of complications, including the added expense of rush outsourcing or overtime costs, health dangers related to increased exposure inside and outside the lab, and, equally as damaging, threats to data integrity and to the successful completion of the research underway at the institution.
Remote Monitoring
Remote monitoring services are now becoming available from sterilizer and washer suppliers. These offerings range from a basic ability to tap into cycle data to diagnose and repair certain problems without the need for a technician’s visit, to sophisticated predictive maintenance services that monitor machine operations constantly and use algorithms to help identify and repair problems before they can result in reduced performance or unscheduled downtime.
The basis for these services generally consists of connecting each sterilizer and washer to the customer’s existing Ethernet network. The monitoring software requires modest resources and can usually sit on any server or dedicated PC. The service provider typically works with the lab’s IT or IS Department to ensure that all security concerns are met. IT professionals familiar with remote monitoring systems report that these programs can operate successfully within existing firewalls and security protocols, and add no more risk to overall security than allowing existing client PCs to access the Internet from their network.