Distance Support Tech - Improvements in Distance Support Technology: A Remote Helper

For years, members of corporate IT teams have remotely accessed employees’ workstations to discover problems and unlock frozen computers. They could do so without leaving the IT department and without entering the workspace of the employee. Sometimes they did this from the same building and sometimes from across the country. For the employee, the process was often surreal, with their computer coming to life, looking like some invisible force had taken control.

Remote support is not a new idea, but its application and acceptance have increased and improved over time. Today, support from a remote location is common and practical. Remote access to a medical device also provides the means for diagnostics, providing software updates, applying patches and doing repairs. It allows engineers to monitor the device and foresee maintenance issues or provide a troubleshooting heads-up.

Monitoring equipment remotely often allows for the detection of minute changes that may go unnoticed otherwise. Environmental factors, undetected by those present, may be picked up on by the remote engineer and communicated to those providing patient care.

“Today almost every service action, except physically touching the system, can be performed remotely,” says Mike Swinford, president and CEO, GE Healthcare Global Services. “In addition, the constant monitoring of equipment parameters, makes possible contextual maintenance actions (service actions based on how the system is used).”

“With the use of predictive algorithms, we are able to anticipate and tailor service actions in order to increase efficiency. Beyond maintaining equipment in the best condition of safety and availability, new technologies are also offering many possibilities for workflow and operations optimization,” Swinford says.

The intention of the manufacturers, who have utilized this technology for a long time, is reflected in the experience of users. While some HTM professionals complain that remote service is an expensive addition to a service contract that doesn’t offer much return, others like what they see.

“Since most of the medical equipment these days is not purely mechanical; and even the mechanical pieces are computer controlled, and are constantly providing and logging data, much of the support of the equipment can be done remotely,” says Qusai A Shikari, clinical systems engineer with Kaiser Permanente Clinical Technology. “The constraints start when there is a pure mechanical part failure, and a replacement is necessary. Up until this point, most of the services can be provided remotely; it is only the constraints of the implemented IT infrastructure the system resides on, that prevents remote service for medical equipment.”

“As the service engineering workforce continues to age, and many knowledgeable and highly experienced technicians retire, remote support is an excellent way of consolidating much of that knowledge and experience and making it available in today’s work environment,” says Joseph A.

Haduch, MBA, MS. He is the Director of Imaging Services for University of Pittsburgh Medical Center PMC and BioTronics.

Haduch’s facility uses the remote support offering from GE Healthcare.

“Every organization in healthcare or healthcare manufacturing is looking for ways to streamline operations and find more efficient and cost-effective ways of delivering service,” Haduch says. “Remote service technology is one means of providing hospitals with a higher level of service at minimal cost.”

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