Equipment Safety: Stop, Report, and Document
Key Takeaways
- Unsafe equipment should be removed from service until qualified staff evaluate it.
- Failed conductivity, pH, temperature, alarm, residual, water, or electrical checks are stop-and-report findings.
- Do not bypass safety devices, ignore repeated alarms, or create workarounds to keep a station running.
- Documentation should be objective, timely, and include the equipment identifier, finding, action taken, and who was notified.
Removing equipment from service
Equipment safety covers machines, water systems, concentrate equipment, reuse equipment, chairs, scales, power cords, blood pressure devices, clamps, detectors, and emergency supplies. A device that fails a required check is not safe just because treatment volume is high.
Stop-and-report findings include failed conductivity or pH, unsafe temperature, unresolved disinfectant residual, water system alarm, blood leak detector failure, air detector problem, repeated unexplained alarms, damaged cord, visible leak, broken clamp, cracked housing, smoke, burning smell, or missing safety test.
The first priority is patient protection. If the patient is connected, follow emergency and machine alarm policy, call the nurse or qualified staff, and keep the extracorporeal circuit safe within scope. If the machine is in setup, do not connect a patient until the problem is resolved.
Use out-of-service tags or the local process so another worker does not use the same equipment by mistake. Notify biomedical, the charge nurse, water technician, or other designated staff according to the problem.
Document objective facts: date and time, equipment ID, station, test result or alarm, patient impact if any, action taken, who was notified, and whether the device was removed from service. Do not document guesses as facts.
Exam Tie-In
Application-level technical items reward stopping unsafe setup before patient exposure. If a machine, water result, dialysate check, alarm, or circuit component is questionable, remove it from service as policy requires, report promptly, and document objective facts.
A dialysis machine has a frayed power cord during setup. What should the technician do?
During treatment, a machine has repeated unexplained venous pressure alarms after basic checks do not resolve the issue. What is the safest next step?
Which documentation entry best fits an equipment adverse event?