Method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation

• US 6,754,545 B2
• Filed: 03/01/2002
• Issued: 06/22/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 03/01/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Healthcare GMBH (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Siemens AG
• Inventors: Rosenberger, Werner, Haeuser, Peter
• Primary Examiner(s): Picard, Leo
• Assistant Examiner(s): ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ, CARLOS R
• Application Number:
  US10/085,062
• Publication Number:
  US 20020123861A1
• Time in Patent Office: 844 Days
• Field of Search: 700/108, 700/109, 700/110, 700/19, 700/20, 700/90, 707/104.1, 707/40, 707/7
• US Class Current: 700/90
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/40 for the management of medical equipment or devices, e.g. scheduling maintenance or upgrades
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 70/00 ICT specially adapted for the handling or processing of medical references
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99937 Sorting
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41) of a generic type that are in operation, in the case of which method data acquired during a regular inspection of the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41) are transmitted to a central database (51) and are evaluated by an evaluation device (52) assigned to the database (51).

Claims

1. A method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances of a generic type that are in operation, having the following method steps:

a) for medical appliances comprising plural operational modules, acquiring data that are generated during a regular inspection of the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41) at the site of the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41),

b) transmitting the data to a central database (51),

c) assigning the transmitted data to modules in the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41), and

d) storing the data in collective files (200a to 200d), assigned to the modules in the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41), of the central database (51) on the basis of the assignment to the modules in the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41),

wherein each collective file corresponds to a different one of the operational modules.

2. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 1, in which the regular inspection is a regular maintenance, a regular calibration measurement and/or a regular quality measurement.

3. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 1, in which the data are acquired by computers (12, 22, 32, 42) in the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41).

4. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 1, in which the data are transmitted with the aid of an information transmission network to which the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41) and the database (12, 22, 32, 42) can be connected.

5. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 4, in which the information network is a telephone network, the Internet, an Intranet or an Extranet.

6. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 3, in which the computers (12, 22, 32, 42) transmit the data to the database automatically.

7. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 1, in which the medical appliances are magnetic resonance apparatuses (11, 21, 31, 41), computer tomographs, lithotripters, ultrasonic appliances or X-ray machines.

8. The method for systematically assessing the quality of medical appliances that are in operation as claimed in claim 1, in which the database (51) is assigned to a manufacturer (50), a marketing organization or a sales organization of the medical appliances (11, 21, 31, 41).

9. A method for collecting and analyzing the operation of a plurality of like medical equipment, comprising the steps of:

a) collecting data at each of a plurality of like medical equipment, the data relating to the operations of plural subsystems of the medical equipment;

b) transmitting the collected data to a central database over a communications network;

c) at the central database, separating the transmitted data into data sets associated with each of the operations of the plural subsystems;

d) for each operation of the plural subsystems, storing the separated transmitted data corresponding to that operation into a corresponding collective file so that data for that operation for the plural medical equipment are collected into the same collective file; and

e) assessing the operation of the plurality of medical equipment for plural of the operations by examining the data collected in the corresponding plural collective files,

wherein each collective file corresponds to a different one of the subsystems of the medical equipment.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein step a) data collection is taken at regular maintenance inspections.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein step a) data collection is taken at a regular calibration measurement.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein ones of the plural medical equipment are located at plural hospitals.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein,

the plural medical equipment are magnetic resonance apparatuses, and

the collective files in one collective file assigned to a magnet system, one collective file assigned to an RF system, and one collective file assigned to a patient positioning system of the magnetic resonance apparatuses.