by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | November 24, 2014
From the November 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
SVRC’s Taylor agrees. “Standalone is going to be much cleaner,” he says. “I’ve seen multiple hospitals that we had to just root-out the compressors because it’s not maintained as well. Standalone is just more reliable.”
Keeping an eye on things with remote monitoring
Remote monitoring can be a simple affair, or fairly complex. It can also mean the difference between a minor service call or a major repair. It’s that difference that is causing more people to explore options.
Some systems attach externally, directly to the chillers, some provide email alerts when there’s a problem and even the level of detail they provide about problems varies greatly.
According to Taylor, an inexpensive way to monitor your chillers is to set up a monitoring system through the hospital’s security monitoring company. “If you’re going to have an alarm system on your facility or mobile unit anyway, you pay a nominal fee for temperature probes and room sensors,” he says. “In my opinion, it’s the cheapest way to go because you’re already paying for monitoring.”
Even older chillers can be hooked up to remote monitoring systems. “You can hook up a probe and set your high and low temperature ranges, if the temperature goes past a set amount, it will alert the alarm company and they’ll contact the person they have on file,” says Taylor.
“Remote monitoring is definitely becoming more popular,” says King. “I’d say five years ago we hardly ever got a request, but now half the chillers we sell have some type of communication component.”
Although some systems do have the ability to send emails, there can be problems with that if a facility isn’t careful. “You have to start worrying about HIPAA controls,” says Bernard. “You don’t want the chiller to be the weak link where patient records are compromised. Cell towers are fine as long as you have good cell service. It’s a convenience. Especially for smaller facilities with a radiology department not open 24 hours – if a chiller goes down off-hours, they may be hit with additional service costs due to damage to machines.”
“We get a lot of requests, whether it’s a standard box with just indicator lights — green meaning good to go, red basically meaning stop — to quick connect panels to monitor flow and temperature. And still other sites have remote indicator touch screens that you can scroll through to see all the functions of the chiller itself,” says Filtrine’s Bond.
What to do if a chiller fails
Whether your chiller is serviced by in-house or outside technicians, the importance of doing a proper job cannot be stressed enough .“Maintenance isn’t a repair. It’s cleaning and evaluating the system,” says Taylor. “But many companies doing PM calls aren’t really doing PM,” he says. During a proper PM, the coils need to be cleaned, connections, temperature fluid levels and purity as well as amps need to be checked, he says. Visual inspection should check for any vibration, or any wear to tubing from it rubbing together.
