Clinical Equipment Administrator Support Services Admin

Position Summary
The Patient Clinical Equipment at PHC site is responsible for coordinating the provision of specialty beds, pressure redistribution surfaces, and other centrally distributed corporate patient care assistive equipment to the hospital.

This specialized equipment is designated in order to optimize patient care, prevent delays while ensuring best practices in infection control. Specializes in devices and aids that prevent skin deterioration and promoting healing in confined and ambulatory patients.

Collaborates with other departments to support and advance patient care including prevalence and incidence studies of skin breakdown. Goals include:

• Optimal patient care practices and clinical outcomes for patients;
• Determining future trends and acquisitions to deal with special populations of patients, i.e. morbid obese, bariatric, frail elderly, disabled, rehabilitation and post-operative;
• Follows a standardization approach for clinical equipment selection with collaboration from hospital wide multidisciplinary health care teams;
• Develops policies and procedures for equipment and promotes best practice guidelines for the organization.

The primary role of the Patient Clinical Equipment Administrator is to support the functions and processes related to Patient Clinical Equipment.

This involves maintenance of a database for specialty clinical equipment, distribution, tracking, retrieval, maintenance logging and utilization and cleaning of this centrally managed clinical equipment.

This role also supports this established centralized model for specialty clinical equipment, distribution, tracking, retrieval, maintenance logging and utilization by ensuring that this specialty equipment meets infection control practice standards for cleaning, disinfecting, and laundering while maintaining this specialty equipment in good working order.

The incumbent will work with the care teams when hospital owned specialty equipment is unavailable to facilitate the rental of patient specific clinical equipment. The administrator will manage the tracking of this rental equipment and will exchange the rental equipment with hospital owned equipment as soon as this hospital owned equipment becomes available. The administrator will then ensure that the rental equipment is returned to the rental vendor in a timely manner to support fiscal responsibility within the department and the hospital.

The incumbent will work with the health care team and support services in order to maintain a network of parking stations for wheelchairs, staxi-chairs, and stretchers.

Duties And Responsibilities

• Responds to clinical equipment requests from patient care units for centrally managed specialty clinical equipment to ensure the right equipment is available to the right patient at the right time;
• Works collaboratively with the care teams to ensure timely delivery, set up, and instruction on the usage of this specialty equipment in the patient care units;
• Assists the clinician on required documentation for patient chart with the clinical intervention, i.e., name of the equipment, device or surface;
• Triages patient requests for pressure redistribution surfaces and when request is inappropriate, makes a recommendation to the clinician for alternative surface based on patient symptoms and conditions;
• Responds to and documents requests from patient care units to retrieve specialized clinical equipment from the nursing unit upon patient discharge or upon discontinuing of equipment in a time to response framework to ensure maximum appropriate usage of hospital owned specialty equipment;
• Responds to requests from patient care units for rental of specialty beds and redistribution surfaces that are not owned or available within the Hospital;
• Manages the ordering, tracking, retrieval and return of this rented equipment;
• Organizes loan of equipment from one unit to another unit or across site for a specific patient need and diagnosis;
• Participates in training programs as required to learn the full functioning capacity and trouble-shooting knowledge & skills required for all existing clinical specialty equipment and for any equipment purchased by the department;
• Follows established infection control practices for cleaning and disinfecting the specialty clinical equipment and returns this specialty equipment to the appropriate central storage area. This process includes cleaning/disinfecting some specialty equipment.
• As well, is responsible for sending and retrieving predetermined specialty equipment to the central laundry and picking up cleaned items for further distribution when required
• Uses the hospital systems daily to track specialty beds, surfaces and other equipment assets belonging to the department;
• Collaborates with health care team to ensure efficient delivery and retrieval of specialty beds and therapeutic surfaces from clinical units requesting this specialized equipment;
• Manages the ordering, tracking, retrieval and return of all rented specialty beds and redistribution surfaces within the hospital. Rental equipment is tracked on a daily basis using the hospital systems;
• Works with the Engineering Bed Mechanic and Clinical engineering on the equipment repairs for equipment within the Clinical Equipment Department;
• Maintains a database of specialty beds, surfaces, and other equipment within the clinical equipment department so that the daily utilization status can be identified (i.e.: in use, in stock, in repair, in laundry);
• Ensures that each asset is bar coded and documented in asset management system and a service history maintained on each asset;
• Ensures that when equipment is identified for disposal, the correct decommissioning procedure and policies are followed;
• Inspects and ensures that all designated central clinical equipment storage areas are clean, neat and organized;
• Assists with the evaluation of new equipment and makes purchase recommendations;
• Assists with organizing the small equipment year end purchases in consultation with clinical units, procurement and finance departments;
• Manages the annual mattress inspection and audit for the inpatient units. Failure and damaged mattresses are identified, removed from the units and replaced with new mattresses;
• Helps ensure the wheelchairs and staxi-chairs in the parking stations at the entrance lobbies and at various locations within the hospital.
• Manages the database of equipment within the clinical equipment department and advises the when volumes need to be replenished (loss, damage, decommissioned equipment).
• Collaborates with the health care/wound care team members to ensure instruction on the usage of this specialty equipment in the patient care areas;
• Acts as a resource for inquiries from health care team members on the operation and use of the specialty beds, pressure redistribution surfaces, and other clinical equipment that is available through the centralized Patient Clinical Equipment Department;
• Facilitates in-service training sessions for health care team members when new equipment is purchased by department. Able to act in a Train-the-Trainer role for the new equipment;
• Facilitates in-service training sessions for hospital-wide health care team members when new equipment is purchased to support corporate initiatives;
• Participates in training programs as required to learn the full functioning capacity and trouble shooting skills required for all existing clinical specialty equipment and for any equipment purchased by the department.

Qualifications

• Community college diploma in health care or business.
• Strong customer service skills
• Strong communication skills
• The successful candidate will be required to successfully complete the following Hospital courses:
• Pressure ulcer prevention;
• Completion of Wound Care Courses 1 & 2;
• Current CPR certification.
• Minimum experience of 3 years working with Clinical Equipment:
• Knowledge and ability to perform minor repairs and assembly of clinical equipment;
• Knowledge and use of computerized equipment( i.e., pumps, patient lifts);
• Knowledge of body mechanics.
• Computer skills, database management, internet, Microsoft Word, Access, Excel, Email and Admission /Discharge/Transfer software.
• Ability to perform duties in a professional and courteous manner and produce quality work while meeting deadlines in accordance with Hospital standards;
• Exercise initiative and good judgment with ability to multi-task;
• Effective organizational, interpersonal and communication skills;
• Excellent customer service skills, problem solving and conflict resolution skills;
• Must meet the physical demands of the position.

Unity Health Toronto is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive organization. We strive to provide a recruitment process that is barrier-free and in compliance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and the Ontario Human Rights Code. We understand that you may require an accommodation at any stage of the recruitment process. When you are contacted, please inform the Talent Acquisition Specialist and we will work with you to meet your accommodation needs. We want to emphasize that all accommodation requests are handled with the utmost confidentiality, respecting your privacy and dignity.