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The Drip of Death
MXR Imaging installed an MRI imaging system in a healthcare facility in Florida. MRI systems are notoriously temperature sensitive and that’s even more critical in steamy Florida. MXR made several environmental recommendations to the customer that were not fully implemented. Over time, condensation from the air conditioner dripped on the MRI system cabinets and caused its components to short out. This ended up being a six-figure mistake, but it didn’t just happen once, it happened twice!
How is it possible that this could have happened twice? Read on to learn from one customer’s mistakes.
The customer’s air conditioning system was built into the ceiling and was positioned right above the MRI equipment room. This set off all types of red flags when the MXR team originally installed the unit. While we would have preferred moving the cooling system to literally anywhere else, that wasn’t an option for this customer. Instead, we offered a series of mitigating recommendations that we felt any HVAC contractor could install.
Sadly, the customer did not fully implement our recommendations and the condensation ultimately brought down the unit. Fixing a unit like this is both costly and expensive. Our first focus was to try to identify which parts were damaged, but we concluded that the cost in labor and downtime to isolate the problem was going to be more expensive than just replacing the whole cabinet. That’s what we did.
The good news was that MXR had the cabinet in stock. The bad news was that it took us 10 full days to get the customer up and running again. The cabinet is a 2600-pound system that requires professional riggers to place the cabinet in the equipment room. MXR moved at lightning speed and shipped a unit directly from its New Jersey warehouse. This obviously caused serious downtime disruption to the practice, but it could have been much worse.
Once the customer was operational again, we reiterated our recommendation of installing a condensation catch tray to channel the water literally anywhere else. It was a simple HVAC project and this time the customer took our advice.
Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the story. Years went by without a problem before our phone rang again. The system was down. We quickly determined that the cause was exactly the same problem. When we removed the ceiling tiles to inspect the condensation tray, it was obvious that no one had maintained this system. The condensation tray is designed at an angle so that the liquid drains off through a tube, but condensation is calcium-rich and over the years without annual HVAC preventative maintenance, the tube clogged, and water dripped again!
MXR again came to the rescue and performed the exact same recovery strategy and this time the customer installed a $50 water sensor from Home Depot to provide advance notice of any future drip problems.
The moral of the story is that preventative maintenance for your imaging systems and all the supporting infrastructure is critical to staying online and avoiding six-figure incidents. No one wants this to even happen once, let alone twice!
MXR Imaging is the nation’s largest independent distributor of medical imaging equipment. MXR has been in business since the 1950s and today’s product line includes everything from X-Ray and Ultrasound products all the way up to CT and MRI systems. MXR gives customers a wide range of purchase options across the dozens of brands it carries. MXR takes the risk out of imaging systems by offering design, staging, support and repair services from coast to coast.
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