Biomedical tech team keeps vital equipment running
NOTE TO READERS: As the community grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, there are those who keep other people safe and keep essential services running, including doctors and nurses, grocery store clerks and garbage collectors. These are their stories from the front line of Niagara’s battle with the novel coronavirus.
Maintaining vital medical equipment while dealing with life-threatening, infectious diseases is just part of the job for Frank Gigliotti and Niagara Health’s team of biomedical technologists.
“This is not anything abnormal,” said Gigliotti, who has worked at Niagara’s hospitals for 31 years.
“There have been other viruses that have been out there over the years and we handled it just the same.”
The physicians and medical staff are entrusted with the lives of patients, and they rely on the biomedical technologists to ensure they have the equipment they need.
Gigliotti leads a team of 10 biomedical technologists, working to maintain 8,500 pieces of medical equipment at all Niagara Health sites as well as equipment at Hotel Dieu Shaver.
That included the 58 ventilators that have been crucial in treating the most severely ill COVID-19 patients.
He said the technologists have always taken significant precautions to protect themselves and others from infectious disease.
For instance, he said, it’s standard practice to use universal precautions on any equipment they service, especially if they’re unsure of the condition of the last patient treated with it.
Despite having been on the job through past epidemics such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and H1N1, Gigliotti said the COVID-19 pandemic has led to changes for the technologists.
In addition to the disinfection completed by hospital staff, Gigliotti said the technologists do their own enhanced disinfection before they handle the equipment they’re working on.
Even after they’re done, they carefully disinfect their tools, test equipment, work surfaces and work area.
“There’s a little bit more awareness, and a little bit more pressure on our staff, of course, but that’s all part of all the staff at Niagara Health going above and beyond the call of duty,” he said.
Technologists are often called in to make urgent repairs or adjustments to vital equipment in areas of the hospital where they might otherwise be at risk of exposure to the virus.
They’re decked out in the same masks, gloves, face shields and gowns worn by medical staff as they enter those areas.
While those urgent calls might seem like a worse-case scenario, they too, are just a typical day on the job for Gigliotti’s team.
“A ventilator not working or an anesthesia machine not operating the way it’s supposed to during surgery, or other equipment not operating when it’s providing patient care — that’s a normal day in our line of work.”
Being part of the front line in the midst of this crisis can seem daunting.
“If you stop and thought about the pressure and the risks, perhaps you’d think a little differently,” he said.
But it’s the professionalism and skill of his colleagues that give them the confidence to handle the crisis. Their efforts have twice led to certification through the Canadian Medical Biological Engineering Society’s peer review program, in 2015 and 2018.
“Biomedical experts from across Canada audit our policies, procedures and systems. They spend five days here at Niagara Health going through everything, and we are only a handful of hospitals that passed that peer review,” Gigliotti said.
“I look at my own team and I’m very proud at how they’re responding. It’s a high-demand, high-pressure time and they’re performing very well. It’s a great team to have.”
He extended that praise to the other health-care professionals they work with daily.
“They’re fantastic people to work with.”