Covering EMS Equipment Calibration During Downtime

The equipment you use during emergencies needs to be up to date at all times. If you have to fiddle with something even for a couple of seconds, it could mean the difference between having a treatable injury or having a fatal one. 

However, you’re always on the go. You have to be ready to respond to something at any time. That means you don’t have a reliable way of keeping your equipment calibrated and up to date. How do you handle this restraint on your time? 

There are a couple of ways you can handle keeping your equipment functioning at all times. This article will outline the pros and cons of each way and suggest the one we think is best. 

Setting Up Calibration Processes

Regardless of how you decide to schedule a time for your calibration, you need processes in place. Using Asset Panda to track repairs and maintenance on your equipment is beneficial in several ways. Not only will you be able to see the last time something was updated, but you can also set up notifications. These notifications can tell you when certain items need help, and when repairs need to be completed. 

You can also track when certain assets expire and need to be replaced. That way, nothing is out of date when you’re out on the job and need to use a piece of equipment to help someone.

Method One: Dedicating downtime to calibration

Some days, response teams have hours of downtime. This is a good time to put towards checking everything in your vehicle 

One of the biggest pros to this approach is that you don’t have to add more work to an EMT’s already stressful job. They’ll get to updating equipment when they can. 

However, the big downside is that downtime is unpredictable. Depending on what part of the city, what time of day. 

If you can find patterns in your downtime, and make an estimated guess of when that’ll happen, you can encourage your EMT’s to do equipment calibration during this time. However, emergencies don’t want people to be ready for them. So this can be a dangerous path. 

Method Two: Scheduling someone to come in who isn’t responsible for emergency call response

Another way you can handle equipment calibration is you can schedule someone to come in who isn’t responsible for emergency call response. You can choose whether you want this to be an EMT or an administrative staff member. 

The biggest benefit of this method is that you have a sure way of getting the equipment calibration done. Your staff member who’s working on this project isn’t going to be responsible for doing anything else. 

However, doing it this way requires a lot of scheduling. You’ll need to put certain vehicles out of commission while their assets get updated and calibrated. 

With the right tools, the second method is by far the best. Doing it this way ensures that things get done, that they are done well and not interrupted in the middle of the process. Asset Panda can help you track these processes, as well as who needs to be in charge of updating equipment at any given time. 

You’ll also be able to track which medical devices are most used, what supplies your ambulances tend to run out of faster, and which items don’t get used almost at all, but still need to be on hand. 

Your patients should suffer subpar care just because you don’t have a system for keeping your emergency equipment in tip-top shape. Consider implementing a program like the one mentioned above to keep everything working as it should be.