Fetal Toco Transducer Repair - 5 YEAR WARRANTY !!!!
Fetal Toco Transducer Repairs - 5 Year Warranty
Top notch quality with price that OEM can not beat !!!
During the month of February 2008, L & D dept. head got very upset with all of us. In that meeting, she presented the tracking record and performance issues with the fetal transducers - Toco & Ultrasound (Fetal Heart) that shocked everyone. She pointed out that she had been complaining about it for last 4 years and finally started keeping the track record for almost last 2 years. Most of us had not paid serious attention to such complaints as were informed by repair service company that the physical damages are due to rough handling. It is true that there has always been some physical breakage due to mishandling but the tracking data presented in the meeting clearly indicated the poor quality repairs, repeated failures and overall poor performance. Though the repair cost per transducer was very low, by way of repeated service the amount paid per unit turned out to be more than a new transducer from the original manufacturer that too in less than a year.
Our director ordered to replace the repaired transducers with new from the original manufacturer. The purchasing department came with the price quote that was close to a quarter million dollars to replace all of them. The warranty offered was about a year and the management got concerned over the high cost of the replacement as well as incurring cost every year. We were asked to find out an alternative vendor for the quality repairs.
Back to square one, we started using a different company for our repairs of Toco transducers. The issue became very hot when some patient had complications during the labor and relative threatened to take actionbased on the poor quality of monitoring devices. Person with in depth knowledge of medical devices and experience, can get to the root cause of the problem. We started testing each repaired item before putting into usage. It was time consuming and stressful as we are short staffed due to economic situation and number of PMs performed per month demands us to stay late every day. We were not happy with the quality of repairs. The solution - we changed to another vendor and a month passed, same problem of poor quality of repairs. Again changed vendor, same problem continued and by the end of the year we had already used 6 different companies other than the one that we were using for years.
During the December 2008, the management decided to buy at least 20% of new transducers from the original manufacturer. It was based on the testing records and our recommendations. Meanwhile we found a company that charged more but assured guaranteed performance and 2 year warranty but price quote was shot down by the purchasing department obviously being on higher side.
Beginning of the year 2009, the issue was discussed in the meeting for department budgets and L & D head brought a print out of the blog that talked about the same problem we were facing and the company recommended by the blogger was the one that was shot down by our purchasing department! Our director checked out the blog and gave us approval to try out the services from the company out of Georgia. We are satisfied with the quality and moreover L & D is extremely happy with the performance for last 9 months. We are not blamed any more! Nor we blame Nurses for poor handling!
The new vendor makes sense to us as they pointed out some of the inherent problems with particular models and the simple remedy that reduces cost as well as down time. Last Monday, we were informed by this vendor that all our rebuilt fetal ultrasound transducers M1355A have warranty not only for 2 years as a whole unit but also for 5 years on crystal bonding which is a very common problem (rattling). We did drop the rebuilt transducer from second floor about 26 ft. height and the crystal did not come off. Only thing that got slightly affected was the belt buckle but the transducer worked just fine! In regular usage the drop would be at the most from 6 -7 ft. if the monitors are mounted high on wall or bedside trolley.
We hope the following blog link would also help you and would be happy to share our experience. The key factor is precise tracking and unbiased analysis. The approval of the vendor should be strictly based on the quality of the work rather than taking their word for granted.
http://tocorepairs.blogspot.com/
http://www.blogger.com/profile/16724840114237900492
We mostly have old HP fetal monitors. HP is bought over by Philips and latest fetal monitors from Philips are Avalon series with triplets monitoring capability. The Avalon fetal monitors can be configured with the wireless transducers M2725A, M2726A or with cable transducers model M2734A, M2735A and M2736A. Avalon series fetal monitors are excellent but the cost of transducers is in the range of $1400 and hence it is not economical from service point of view. We have been using following transducer models.
HP/Philips Toco Transducer M1355A
HP/Philips Ultrasound Transducer M1356A
Philips Avalon Wireless Toco Transducer M2725A
Philips Avalon Wireless US Transducer M2726A
Philips Avalon Wireless ECG Transducer M2727A
Philips Avalon Toco Transducer M2734A
Philips Avalon SMART Toco Transducer M2735A
Philips Avalon Ultrasound Transducer M2736A
GE/Corometrics Toco Transducer 2260
GE/Corometrics Trimline Toco Transducer 2260EAX
GE/Corometrics Nautilus Toco Transducer 2264 LAX/HAX/AAX
GE/Corometrics Ultrasound Transducer 5700 HAX
GE/Corometrics US Transducer 5700 LAX
No matter how so ever the rugged design is, the transducers do fail and has wear and tear based on usage as well as the handling. We find that the HP transducers M1355A and M1356A are most reliable compared to Corometrics Trimline Toco 2260 EAX and Nautilus 2264 HAX/LAX. The GE/Corometrics Nautilus Ultrasound 5700, the original transducers after short term usage give intermittent problem. Once the cable is replaced with high flexibility and overall quality, they work well. The failures in HP/Philips transducers are very low provided they are original from HP or Philips and not the compatibles.
All the Biomeds being technically qualified and experienced, should take closer look at the repaired transducers, compare with the original and open (disassemble) it if problems are noticed in order to make thorough check. Some of the repair service companies deliberately break some internal walls of the original transducer top cases as their replacement bottom cases (NON OEM) do not fit due to dimensional mismatch. The replacement casings are manufactured using cheap raw materials and processes to reduce the cost. Some times we get carried away due to the bright color and the look that is deceiving. The compatibles transducers, if you open it up after 5-6 months of usage, you will get real head ache. Many of these transducers do not have the metal inserts for top-bottom fitting, the screws and internal metal parts are rusted being made out of cheap material other than standard Stainless Steel. The old gages are re-used by gluing some strain gage foils that do not conform to the OEM specifications. You would be lucky if you can dismantle the repaired or compatible Corometrics 2260 box style transducer without damaging. The Aluminum stand-offs come off as they are threaded directly into the plastic (No metal insert used in bottom casings) and can not be re-assembled without heavy gluing. The gage plate gets so much rusted and if you send it to lab, you would find a bacterial colony! Is not it scary?
It is our moral responsibility to make sure that the patients are given deserving treatment and we should do our part. Purchasing Managers can be convinced if the performance testing, routine check and tracking is well documented. Cheapest is not always best. The quality and pricing has to be compared with what OEM offers and not with the cheapest stuff available in the town. It is a mistake to negotiate with the quality cautious vendor demanding to match or even go further down compared to the lowest quote obtained. Comparison has to be apple to apple and fact of the life is that Mercedes car can not be bought at or the reduced price than lowest one available in the town.
End user i.e. the clinical staff nurses are most important and their feedback is always precious to cut the recurring cost to minimal level and obtain high up time of the equipment. During the emergency situations, patient's comfort and life is the priority and hence the equipment or the accessory like transducer gets least attention. If quality stuff is used, damages due to such incidences are not that significant as compared to the poor quality product. It is very unfair (on part of sales people from some service companies) to keep blaming the end users (nursing staff), neglect their repeated appeal about the poor performance and procure the services from a cheapest vendor just taking their word for granted. It is in our interest to train the end users for proper and safe handling. Working hand in hand with the L & D staff not only improves overall quality but is always a pleasure. Finally, we are the way we think and if we choose to accept sales pitch (from marketing people of cheap quality service companies) that the end users are solely responsible then the facts could never be unveiled. In today's economic situation, it is better to focus on quality that yields significant savings on long term basis.
In this digital era, common man is getting more educated day by day and it would not be a surprise if lot many patients start questioning poor quality monitoring equipment service. It is better to be proactive, track performance of the repaired units, have feedback from end users and most importantly have a committee of 3-4 individuals to thoroughly evaluate the quality of vendor's work absolutely unbiased and not taking into account the sales pitch. The fact is that the poor quality, repeated repairs and high spending is due to one single reason - just looking into one single invoice, the lowest cost per item repair and the invoice total just one time. Best thing is to generate report from purchasing history for 5-10 years and co-relate with total number of monitors/units as well as clinical engineering/biomed dept's repair history report sr. no. wise. There is no surprise if you find that you have 10 monitors with 20 transducers and you have paid at least for 60 repairs in a year !!! Some unit Sr. No. repairs 5-10 times a year !!! Let us say that each unit repair was charged $100, meaning total $ 6000 in a year for 20 transducers....at least 14 brand new OEM (original) transducers could be bought for that amount with a year warranty !!! Also add up cost of P.O. processing, receiving, payment processing, hospital Biomed tech's time, equipment down time etc. If vendor is doing pick up, delivery..all that cost put together in addition to OEM part's cost, there is no way that repaired item would have OEM parts. If the claim is that the parts are manufactured to OEM specs with 10-20 times lower price, better to have those parts tested once from an accredited lab. Also worth while is to have repaired/compatible unit tested thoroughly by unbiased agency. If the logic of lower price claimed by sales/marketing people is true, is it unfair to expect top of the line Mercedes/BMW ....from third party companies for the price of Hyundai or even lower ?
The vendor we use, Averon Bionics, has announced repair capability for latest Philips Avalon wireless fetal transducers M2725A & M2726A and Smart Transducers M2734A, M2735A & M2736A. Please check the following web link for the announcement.
