White, John

Medical equipment has become networked faster than it has become replaceable, and the result is an installed base of devices running operating systems that no longer receive security updates. The exposure is not dramatic in most cases; it accumulates quietly as the systems around the device change while the device does not. For a buyer […]

A counterfeit part is rarely an obviously fake component. It is more often a used part presented as new, a rejected part that left a production line, a reproduction that matches the original’s form without matching its specification, or a genuine part with a falsified history. The consequence in medical equipment is that the device

The need for low-temperature sterilization arises from the instruments, not from a preference for a method. Heat-sensitive devices have to be processed in ways that reach the required conditions without damaging them, and the available methods differ in what they can process, what they require of the site, and what has to be done to

Depreciation is an accounting convention and residual value is a market fact, and confusing the two produces plans that look sound on paper and fail in practice. A clinic that expects to replace equipment at the point its book value reaches zero often finds that the market moved earlier, or that the device is worth

The freight mode decision usually arrives at the wrong moment, after a price has been agreed and a delivery window promised, and it is settled by whoever answers the phone first. For a capital unit, that sequence reverses the logic: the mode determines how many times the equipment is lifted, how long it sits in

A patient monitor is not one device but several measurement channels sharing a housing, and that structure is why monitor verification goes wrong more often than almost any other acceptance test. A simulator is connected to one parameter, the unit produces a plausible trace, and the device is signed off as verified while the remaining

Compatibility is one of the most confidently asserted and least evidenced properties of used imaging equipment. A seller states that a system is DICOM compatible, which is a statement about a standard rather than about the system’s configuration, and a buyer accepts it as confirmation that the equipment will integrate with their picture archiving system.

The phrase complete system appears in equipment listings precisely because it is not defined, and it does useful work for the seller without obliging anyone to specify what is in the crate. For a buyer, the consequences are concrete: a device that cannot be operated because a required accessory is absent, a consumable assumed to

Two identical devices leaving the same department on the same day can realise very different prices, and the difference is usually the file rather than the equipment. A device with a repair history that names what was replaced, against which specification, and when, is easier for a buyer to accept and easier to price. A

A sterilizer is unusual among clinical equipment in that its performance is not visible in its output. A device that has drifted produces a load that looks the same as any other, and the difference appears only if the process is monitored and the equipment is maintained against a schedule. That is why sterilizer maintenance