NC biomedical repairers call on legislature to pass medical Right to Repair bill

NCPIRG delivered a letter signed by 79 North Carolina clinical engineers and biomedical repair technicians to the North Carolina House Health Committee. The letter calls on state legislators to pass Medical Right to Repair in North Carolina, such as the recently introduced Medical Equipment Right to Repair Act, H752.

Are you a clinical engineer or biomedical repair technician interested in joining the call? Add your name here today.

Below is that letter: 

Dear legislators,

COVID-19 has underscored the need for a more cooperative relationship between medical equipment manufacturers and hospital clinical engineering departments. But this problem is not new. Some manufacturers routinely restrict our access to repair parts, manuals, diagnostic information or training, limiting our ability to fix life-saving medical equipment and putting patient safety at risk.  

As a result, we pay higher prices for manufacturer repair and have to deal with delays as we wait for manufacturer technicians to travel to our hospitals to make fixes that our onsite team could make if armed with the right information and tools. 

A report by U.S. PIRG published July 2020 shows how pervasive this problem is. It shows that 91.8 percent of the 222 biomedical repair technicians surveyed were denied repair information for  “critical equipment (defibrillators, ventilators, anesthesia machines, imaging equipment, etc.).” 48.8% report they have been denied access to “critical repair information, parts or service keys” in the first three months of the pandemic.

Many manufacturers claim that allowing hospitals to repair their own equipment would result in safety issues. A 2018 FDA report, however, found that many third parties “provide high quality, safe, and effective servicing of medical devices,” and are “critical to the functioning of the U.S. healthcare system.” 

Right to Repair reforms, which provide access to repair parts, tools and information at a fair and reasonable price, would help to address the problems that we face. We, the undersigned biomedical repair technicians, clinical engineers and health technology management professionals, urge you to support Medical Right to Repair and associated legislation.

Sincerely,

Pao Yang, Agiliti Health

Hannah DeGorter, Avante

Larry Self, Avante Health Solution

Kaylee McCaffrey, Avante Health Solutions

Keith Hamm, Avante Health Solutions

Dale Dorow, Avante Health Solutions

Bill Griswold, Avante Health Solutions

Lyle Cmerek, Avante Health Solutions

Michael Manning, Avante Health Solutions

Angelina Murphy, Avante Health Solutions

Will Justus, Avante Health Solutions

Charles Peterson, Avante Health Solutions

Ronald Clinard, Avante Health Solutions

Glenn Chandler, Cape fear Valley Health System

Reed Stewart, Cape Fear Valley Health System

Jared Stocking, Cape Fear Valley Medical System

Charles Christensen, Carl Zeiss Microscopy, LLC

Daryl Painter, CarolinaEast Medical Center

Jill Glosup, Cherokee Indian Hospital; Shriners Hospital for Children Greenville, SC

Charles Cramer, Clinical Technology Services

Mickey Haywood, Cone Health 

Brandon Brown, Cone Health/Sodexo

Gregory Bolick, Crothall

Annye Notman, Crothall

William Fry, Crothall Healthcare

Brad Bennett, Crothall Healthcare

Barry Heffner, Crothall HTS

Alan Hilton, Crothall HTS

Benjamin Scoggin, Duke Health

Carley Parker, Duke Health

Nabil el karbani, Duke health System

James Cole, Duke University Health System

Stephanie Puckett, Duke University Hospital

Brian Lefler, FirstHealth of the Carolinas

Matt Dunn, Firsthealth of the Carolinas

Dave Sciano, Hugh Chatham 

Shane Teague, Hugh Chatham/ The Intermed Group 

Sterling Brown, Iredell Health System

Charles Braswell, Iredell Health System

Gary Powell, Iredell Memorial Hospital

Keith Bean, J.A. Dosher Memorial Hospital

Dennis Librandi, M-I-T

Brent Hull, Network Imaging Systems

Justin Thompson, Novant / Trimedx

Jeff Carter, Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center/Trimedx

Frank Nichols, Piedmont Medical Center

Michael McAuliffe, Probo Medical

Kevin  Bean, Retired from Carteret Health Care 

Ronald DuBeau, RS&A

Pete Cost, RSA Inc

James Moore, Samaritan’s Purse

Aaron Watts, Scotland Health Care System

Phyllis Huneycutt, Scotland Healthcare System

Billy Hallyburton, Scotland Memorial Hospital/Crothall HTS

Jason Johnson, Sodexo HTM

Stacy Lail, Southeastern Biomedical Associates

Simon  Mejia, Southeastern Biomedical Associates 

Greg Johnson, Southeastern Biomedical Associates, Inc.

Harold Morris, TRC Companies

Erick Rodriguez, Trimedx

Dallas Sutton, WakeMed

George Reed, WakeMed

James Chambers, WakeMed

Alvin Smith, WakeMed

Shannon Hunter, Wakemed

Tara  Aydlett, WakeMed

Ben Reed, WakeMed

Lee Abremski, Wakemed

Danielle Coleman, WakeMed 

Jack DelloStritto, WakeMed Health & Hospitals

Paul Ford, WakeMed Health & Hospitals

Russ Wells, WakeMed Health and Hospital 

Dana Knapp, WakeMed Health and Hospitals

Eric Sommers, WakeMed Health and Hospitals 

Kelly McFarland , WakeMed Health and Hospitals 

Ervin Page, WakeMed Health&Hospitals

Michael  Christopher, Wilmington Health 

Daniel E. Chester, Wilmington Health Associates

Carol Huneycutt

 

Institutional affiliations for identification purposes only