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When to Decommission Medical Equipment

The market size of medical device manufacturing in the US in 2020 is $47.1 billion dollars.
It has been documented that hospitals discard billions of dollars annually in medical equipment. 

When we decommission medical equipment it usually has been determined End of Life by a letter from the OEM manufacture. This forces the hospital to purchase newer more advanced equipment. Which makes the End of Life equipment available for alternate uses or subject to disposal.

The WHO (World Health organization) has issued guidance on many steps regarding the life cycle of medical devices. But only recently have they issued guidance on the decommissioning of medical equipment.

1) One of the key factors in determining if a piece of equipment should be decommissioned is the software and EPHI data and how it might be accessed by hackers.

2) Another key factor is availability to spare parts.

If a piece of medical equipment falls into either of the (2) categories. The equipment generally becomes obsolete and enters the final stages of its life cycle within that healthcare systems inventory.

There are a few steps available when a medical device is decommissioned.

1) Sold

2) Donated

3) Traded In

4) Refurbished

5) E waste Disposal

Things to consider during the decommissioning process:

1) Proper release of liability documentation?

2) Has the medical equipment been properly decontaminated?

3) Has the EPHI data been removed properly in accordance to NAID standards?

4) Once the device has been disposed of, donated, traded-In, or sold has the device been removed from the database.

ZRG Medical is an asset management company. Specializing in the auction, sale, recycling and donation of surplus medical equipment. ZRG provides full hospital liquidations, certified appraisals and inventory assessments. We are a leader in strict R2 standards for redeployment of used medical equipment.

We are a single source solution for E waste recycling of Medical equipment, IT assets, Hard Drive Destruction and EPHI risk assessment. ZRG will offer fair market value on EOL assets. We do cradle to the grave asset management, de-installations and prompt removal of your surplus assets. 

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