A risk-related preventive maintenance system.

Recent changes in attitudes concerning medical equipment maintenance place more responsibility for planning appropriate levels of maintenance on the clinical engineer and biomedical equipment technician. A system is described in which maintenance decisions are based on the effects of equipment failure on quality of patient care and potential for injury to patients and staff. It is hoped that development of an acceptable classification scheme will simplify maintenance decisions. Such a system will provide levels of maintenance appropriate to the equipment function in patient care.