Tag: redundancy

Medical Grade Computers for 24/7 Use

Medical Grade Computers for 24/7 Use

Michelle

In the hospital setting, emergencies can happen at any time. Not only should your medical personnel be ready to do their job at a moment’s notice, but so too should your equipment. Making sure that your medical PCs are able to operate on a 24/7 basis may be crucial to providing care to patients in critical condition.

 

Medical PCs come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but all have key features that set them apart from commercial models. Firstly, medical PCs must be UL/IEC60601-1 certified for their electromagnetic leakage, which must be within safe levels for use around patients and medical equipment. Second, they should exhibit some level of dust and water resistance, as denoted by their IP rating. IP ratings vary, but medical PCs should at least be rated IP64, which denotes them as fully dust proof and resistant to water exposure and regular cleanings. Lastly, medical PCs should have an antimicrobial agent on their enclosure, which inhibits the growth of bacteria on the medical PC’s surface.

 

You may have noticed that the three key features of medical PCs do not include any metric for reliability. Reliability is not a standard in medical PC manufacturing, but is critical to ensuring that your hospital is able to provide safe and dependable care. Tangent’s lineup of medical PCs and medical all-in-one computers features PCs that are up to the challenge of a 24/7 work environment.

 

Hot Swap Batteries

We’ve all been there, phone at 5% and miles away from an outlet to charge it. In the medical setting, having your medical PC run out of battery while in use is simply not an option. Medical PCs on medical carts have to be plugged in when not in use to ensure that they have a full battery when they are needed, but this charging process requires the whole medical cart be put out of commision during charging. Medical PCs like the Medix E22B feature hot-swap batteries that can be charged on a separate docking station and swapped out with minimal disruption of service. Hot-swap batteries make medical carts infinitely more productive, allowing them to be in use 24/7.

Medical Computers

Uninterrupted Power Supply

While it is not fun to think about worst-case scenarios, it is critical to create plans for emergency situations. A power outage can greatly affect your hospital’s ability to perform live support. While all hospitals today feature generators or battery banks as a contingency, not putting unnecessary stress on these emergency systems is critical to ensuring their longevity. Medical PCs like the Medix C22 can be equipped with an emergency battery supply that allows the computer to function during power outages. Having your medical PCs not strain your emergency power system allows for greater assurance that power is being used where it is most critically required. Medical all-in-one computers with emergency power supplies allow medical personnel to work without fear of draining your power system.

 

Medical PCs are built to keep your hospital a safe and healthy environment to work in, but not every medical PC is built to be a reliable tool for your hospital. Choosing medical PCs with reliability features built in is a key way to ensure that your hospital can meet any emergency at any time.

Computer Redundancy: A Matter of Life or Death in Medical Environments

Michelle

Computer Redundancy: A Matter of Life or Death in Medical Environments

For most people, a power outage constitutes a moderate inconvenience. Cooking dinner or watching TV is out of the question for a few hours, but soon enough life returns to normal with little consequence. For a medical facility, however, a power outage can be quite catastrophic and even life threatening for patients. A sustained loss of power can cause downtime on respiratory devices, medical computers, monitoring devices, and critical equipment for patients in neonatal,  intensive care or cardiac units. Emergency or time critical procedures cannot be performed and loss of refrigeration can severely affect medications and stored blood and tissues. Without any power, medical computers cannot access electronic patient medical records and other hospital data, and orders for medication or procedures cannot be completed. With worsening weather patterns around the world and the prevalence of rolling blackouts, the outlook seems fairly bleak, but this is not the case for well prepared hospitals and care providers. Many facilities now employ a mix of powerful backup generators and equipment with hot-swappable batteries or UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems for critical devices.

Purpose built medical grade computers can make a huge positive impact on service delivery during a power loss event. Tangent offers several all-in-one medical computers that offer battery backup options for such occasions. The Tangent T24B medical computer was designed with three easy-to-use hot-swappable batteries and battery bays to ensure a 24/7 runtime. This provides up to 10.5 hours of runtime without any interruption of power to the user. The T24B also offers antimicrobial treatment to deter the spread of infection, a 24 inch PCAP ten point multi-touch touchscreen, is shielded to prevent interference with other sensitive medical equipment, and has several options for mounting including cart arms, wall mounts, or a stand.

The Tangent M24T 24″ medical computer has an internal UPS battery backup that offers 30 minutes of uninterrupted power. This allows staff to continue working for a time without having to swap out any batteries. The M24T is a high performance machine that can be equipped with up to 32G of memory. The Tangent C24 24” medical computer also has an internal UPS battery backup that allows for 20 minutes of use without any external power. The C22 works very well on medical carts and arms due to it’s convenient front panel buttons, antimicrobial surface, and PCAP touchscreen. All the medical computers mentioned here are offered in a variety of screen sizes and with a variety of available system upgrades and optional accessories to best suit the needs of the care providers and their patients. Disaster recovery is a major focal point for many medical organizations, but the best prepared hospital systems avoid many potential disasters by using equipment and medical devices that offer internal or external battery backups. Several of Tangent’s medical grade all-in-one computers were designed for the continuity of patient care even in the face of unforeseen losses of power, while also delivering top level performance 24 hours a day.