The Biomed On-Call Resource Book: A Checklist for After-Hours Calls

Short answer: an on-call resource book gives whoever answers an after-hours call everything they need without phoning anyone else: who to call and when to escalate, how to get into each site, the critical equipment and where spares and loaners are, which contract covers what and the vendor support numbers, how to tag equipment out, and what the facility has to report if a device may have harmed a patient. Keep one per customer site, review it every quarter, and make sure it works offline.

On-call goes wrong in predictable ways: the technician cannot get into the building, does not know whether the device is under contract, cannot find a spare, or does not know who at the hospital to tell. A resource book fixes all four. Use this as a checklist.

1. Contacts and escalation

• Your own escalation chain: on-call tech, backup, service manager, owner, with phone numbers
• At each site: house supervisor or nursing supervisor, department managers for critical areas (ICU, OR, ED, imaging, dialysis), facilities / plant operations, IT help desk, security
• When to escalate: for example, any life-support device down with no spare, more than one unit of a type down at once, or any possible patient injury
• Who may authorise work outside contract after hours, and the emergency call-out fee

2. Getting in

• After-hours entrance, badge or key arrangements, security desk number
• Where to park, and any escort requirement
• Where biomed spares, loaners and test equipment are kept on site, and how to get access

3. Equipment and spares

• Critical and life-support equipment by department, with model and location
• Spare units and loaners: how many, where, and who holds the key
• Common failure parts you keep in the van for that site
• Equipment that is the customer's own responsibility or another vendor's

4. Contracts and vendor support

• What your contract with the site covers after hours, and at what rates
• OEM and third-party vendor contracts the hospital holds directly: vendor, equipment covered, contract or site number, 24-hour support line
• Imaging and other systems you must not touch, and who services them

5. Taking equipment out of service

• The site's tag-out procedure and where the tags are
• Who in the department must be told, and how you record it
• How you record the device as out of service in your own system, so the morning team knows

6. If a device may have harmed a patient

Do not repair, reset or clean the device. Preserve it with its accessories, disposables and settings, tag it out, and hand it to the facility's risk management process. Under FDA's medical device reporting rules, device user facilities such as hospitals must report device-related deaths to FDA and the manufacturer, and serious injuries to the manufacturer (or to FDA if the manufacturer is unknown), within 10 work days of becoming aware (21 CFR Part 803). That report is the hospital's, but your notes about what you found and when are part of its evidence, so write them down on the work order at the time.

7. Keeping it current

• An owner for each site's book and a quarterly review date
• Update after every staffing change, contract change or new critical equipment
• Available on the phone without signal: hospital basements and plant rooms are where on-call calls end up

How Bravio helps

In Bravio, each facility keeps its contacts and access notes, each asset its location notes and full service history, and each contract its coverage, rates and emergency call-out fee. The technician app keeps that data on the phone, so it can be read in a basement with no signal, and a technician can raise the after-hours work order, record what they found, and capture the customer's signature offline. See biomedical field service software and loaner tracking.