Development of preventive maintenance procedures.

A large number of in-house preventive maintenance (PM) programs, which call for varying degrees of thoroughness in the checkout of patient care instrumentation, are currently in existence throughout the country. This paper discusses the types of preventive maintenance, or PM procedures, which can be used by a clinical engineering department; the rationale for drafting different types of PM procedures in-house; and some long-term considerations affecting hospital-based inspection programs. Three types of PM procedures are described and compared: general checks; generic procedures; and, specific procedures. An outline is provided for writing a PM procedure; and, a call is made for a national guideline for writing preventive maintenance procedures.