The TRIMEDX Clinical Engineering team at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh was recognized as the TechNation’s December department of the month. Clinical Engineering Supervisor Alan Knupp detailed the team’s skills and accomplishments in the feature story.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a large nonprofit with approximately 100,000 employees and 40 affiliated hospitals. One of those hospitals is UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. It provides 1.5 million square feet of space to provide treatment of childhood conditions and diseases and accommodate the families of patients.
The state-of-the-art facility has won national recognition and includes a 10-story, 300,000-square foot research facility.
Managing medical equipment for the Children’s Hospital is the TRIMEDX Clinical Engineering Department at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. The department is comprised of 10 members. They include Site Manager Ross Scalise, Clinical Engineering Supervisor Alan Knupp, six BMETs and two imaging technicians. Knupp says that the group’s technicians have areas of specialty.
“We have technicians who are specifically trained and assigned to various specialty areas within our department. These include anesthesia, ventilators, dialysis, EEG, imaging modalities and ECMO. Whenever possible, we also ensure there is a backup technician available to provide coverage and maintain continuity of expertise in each area,” he says.
Knupp says that the team supports a children’s hospital with 330 licensed beds, along with three main offsite facilities. These offsite locations vary in function but typically include office spaces, imaging services and, in some cases, operating rooms.
He says that service contracts are managed through a thoughtful, data-driven process that typically takes place during budget planning.
“The team reviews the previous years’ service history and associated costs to determine whether it makes financial and operational sense to continue, modify or initiate new service contracts,” Knupp says.
The team also collaborates closely with its IT counterparts.
COLLABORATING ON A BIG PROJECT
The TRIMEDX Clinical Engineering team took on a large-scale project that benefited patients and clinicians.
“One of the most impactful special projects the team has taken on was the replacement of approximately 500 patient monitors across the hospital. This initiative required nearly a year of detailed planning, coordination and execution. The team was responsible for configuring each monitor with new IP and MAC addresses, integrating them into the hospital’s system, and managing live swaps in critical care units – often while patients were actively being treated. This meant working closely with clinical staff to ensure seamless transitions,” Knupp says.
He adds that the project also introduced a new capability to allow real-time monitor viewing from any workstation, significantly enhancing clinical accessibility.
“This project demanded collaboration across multiple hospital departments, IT, GE and hospital administration. It demonstrated the team’s ability to manage large-scale, high-impact technology upgrades without disrupting patient care,” Knupp adds.
In tackling the large patient monitor project, the group proved that they were up to meeting the many challenges that can be encountered with so many touchpoints and variables.
“The patient monitor replacement project also serves as a prime example of the department’s problem-solving capabilities. The team had to navigate a wide range of logistical and technical challenges, from coordinating live equipment swaps to customizing installations for different units. For instance, some ICUs required remote monitors outside patient rooms, which involved sourcing and installing specialized cabling, adapters and power supplies,” Knupp says.
He adds that in operating rooms and cath labs, the team had to pre-plan for multiple displays and ensure that vital signs could be viewed from various locations within the room. All of this had to be done without interrupting patient care, requiring precise scheduling and strong communication with clinical staff.
“The success of this project laid the groundwork for another major initiative: the replacement of approximately 2,500 infusion devices, including 770 syringe pumps,” Knupp says.
He says that this project, which is currently underway, involves tagging, inventorying and coordinating floor-by-floor device swaps.
“The team has applied lessons learned from the monitor project to streamline this rollout, once again demonstrating their ability to solve complex problems through collaboration, planning and a patient-centered approach,” Knupp adds.
The TRIMEDX Clinical Engineering Department at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh proves that a mid-sized specialized team can accomplish a lot. For the health of pediatric patients, that value cannot be overstated.