I am 4 minutes in and having flash backs to my first tech job fresh out of CompTIA training working for a genetics equipment manufacturer whose name I will not say. Now I work for State hospitals in IT and it is exactly like this guy has said so far within the first 4 minutes. You know how many calls I get where I want to fix something but cannot because some vendor has a contract? Meanwhile, a nurses is freaking out because she cannot print the medication labels for the pharmacy to get the patient who I can hear screaming in the background and you already know it is the third time they've called this month only to have the vendor not really do anything. I mean some techs do, but others not so much and yeah some of that is a learning curve but sometimes not so much; and we do keep back up equipment for everything because of situations like the above, but then someone has to go to the nurses station and grab a new cart etc. For me the Right to Repair is not so much about saving $$$$ it is about getting those labels printed fixed quickly so that the patient can get their damn medication rather than waiting on a contracted city approved vendor technician from the manufacturer. ...of course there is a chance I don't know the half of it and maybe keeping the vendor and contractor employment scheme saves the city money making Healthcare affordable in the city, but I feel like care would be better if we were all hired and certified by the vendors so that dispatching could be direct.
I have experience working in the Medical/Healthcare IT sector, it's not even just limited to the hardware or PT Support Equipment nowadays. I vividly remember being on the help desk trying to help Docs/RN/Hospitalists figure out the extremely convoluted systems. As much as they spend on Medical Equipment and Flat Rate Repairs, they spend double on the systems they employ for a year until they "have extra fiscal budget" and redo all of the systems again leaving the staff to relearn, retrain, and remove focus from the patient to deal with a Computer System. Not to mention all of the staff on the IT side engage in the same antics the hospital staff engage in with Departmental Politics (IE: I don't fix this, send it to the group who does *sends ticket back to help desk*) is it so hard to sit down and send that ticket where it needs to go when PT care is on the line? I worked for that hospital 3 times (Once in the IT dept as a contractor, then as full-time, then coming back as a Temp Contractor for a 2 week go-live) they paid me more hourly to sit at a desk out of the way of everyone in the hospital than trying to keep the staff afloat. Good to see people wanting to create and drive change to actually SUPPORT the staff. I work in Financial IT, as a basement dweller I don't wanna go back to the trenches of Hospital IT, not unless there are god's honest attempts at removing sheer madness surrounding stuff that shouldn't be the way it is.
@@bzbrian-wav6997 Gosh I know everyone goes Financial Sector. I get offers for 3-4 times as much but I think the reason so much stuff just gets pushed off to someone else is due to how many people rotate through the revolving door of Medical IT so I don't really want to leave. Plus it isn't the genetic industry. I cannot go back to working in that branch of medical IT. Literally it is a field entrenched with mostly neo-nazis who pump out pseudo-scientific propaganda or mad scientist who decided it was the most intelligent course of action to genetically engineer viruses in the most populated cities on earth instead of doing that sort of lab work out in the sticks where there is no one around to get infected making outbreaks more manageable. I mean good stuff has come out of genetics but not much by comparison to how much awful it has caused what with the human lives it has cost globally several times now. Come to think of it.... for all those PhDs most of these doctors don't seem all that smart. What with their willingness to pay over $2,000 for a light bulb and all the above. Just saying... >.>
I hear its also similar in the US military. They have their own engineering units with some of the most talented people...carpenters, mechanics, electricians, people that specialise in working with metals as wielders and fabricators. BUT. They all have to wait for that one guy from HP when their printer brakes down because thats how the contract works... I heard this a while back so im not sure if its still the same now but i assume nothing has changed.
@@Rose.Of.Hizaki pretty much, I think everyone in every sector has a large stake in the Right to Repair, HP makes crappy printers, they have some of the worst support I've worked with and you gotta wait to get it fixed by them. Lenovo is starting to head in the direction of "pay for a warranty" so we fix the machine no matter what it is. It's all heading the same way where they basically just keep us out of our own machines
@@bzbrian-wav6997 the best printer I ever had was given to me three years ago as garbage because it was 40 years old and they thought they needed to replace it. It had... refillable inks... that's right! Now I know these days such a thing unheard but I assure you they did/do exist and there literally wasn't a thing wrong with it. The ink was still available since it is just color and no fancy cartridge. In fact a refill was about $0.80 for purple and that would refill the cartridge about 3 times within the life cycle of the jar or injector. It never jammed, never broke, never failed in any way. It was just old. I sold it to some church for $80 plus shipping and called it a charity deal. That ancient beast could out pace any modern Cannon printer today.
I used to repair EEG equipment made by a small manufacturer. Ancient times ago I repaired TVs and VCRs. These kind of interviews are very interesting to me.
I got my Journeyman ISCET certification in consumer electronics as i too started with television, VCR, CD, Audio, Repair when I left the Navy in the early 1980's. Now I have done, Radar, 2 way radio, paging, broadcast TV and Radio, Marine Electronics, and now semi-conductor electronics, including robotics and temperature control systems. No degree, no student loans, but a lifetime of training in the field.
I have a lucrative career but it unfulfilling. I have always found an immense satisfaction when I repair something. I hope the world turns full circle someday and the idea of a standalone repair shop for all consumer goods becomes feasible like it was in the 60's.
Awesome to see Better Biomed with one of my favorite content creators. I have been a biomedical equipment technician for 10 years now (started with the US Army biomed program) and right to repair is extremely important to us, we are constantly price gouged by vendors. We have a daily battle to be able to properly troubleshoot and repair our hospital devices, component level troubleshooting and repair is a dying art and OEMs are part of what is killing it.
@@BetterBiomedChannel See if you can have a sit down with @MDGPremium to discuss why they design it this way. He has a weekly phone call maybe he can get you in.
The lightbulbs at the beginning is a good example of why we need to allow certified technicians to repair things and not just the manufacturer. The manufacturer not wanting to take the liability of a bulb failing and someone dying because of it makes sense. But not allowing certified technicians to replace it is actually risking lives. If you charge too much to fix something then someone will create a workaround. That workaround has not been tested. So not allowing certified technicians to fix it forces a percentage of people to hack it making the product more dangerous not less.
Here's a workaround for you - manufacture equipment in a way so there is a fallback. Nothing would stop anyone from incorporating a dedicated sensor per light which would be cause for a fallback bulb and quiet, yet annoying piezo-electric beeper to sound until serviced.
A certification process will only invite more corruption into the mix. Who will oversee the certificates? The manufacturer? The government, whose payed off by the manufacturer? There should be no certification process for repairing such items, only reputation and trust should limit such things because otherwise you just invite corruption.
@nejch1568 I disagree. Plenty of industries void your warranty if it is touched by a non certified technician. The certification is either a class requirement or a test requirement specified by the manufacturer. My solar panels would not have a warranty if the installer was not certified. High end audio gear looses it warranty if a tech is not certified. With medical gear you don’t just want it to work for 5 minutes after someone works on it. You need it to work guaranteed. A fingerprint on a bulb like that can cause an early failure. Wires routed incorrectly can cause a failure. A manufacturer should not be liable for someone dying if the device was not fixed to original specifications.
The interview indicates exactly the opposite. Over reliance on contracts with vendors and licenses leads to stagnation and corruption, which then lead to death in this field.
When I started working for an independent medical equipment calibration facility in Australia I came across a device a hospital sent in that was being forwarded to the manufacturer in the USA for repair, I intercepted it and took it apart and found some shorted 74 series logic ICs and it was clear the user had plugged in the wrong AC adapter, easy repair, replaced them and re-calibrated it to manufacturer provided procedure and the customer got their device back in 1 week rather than 1-2 months and for half the price (manufacturer does the flat fee repair thing plus international shipping). I now do component level repair on those and other devices regularly for Australian and New Zealand hospitals, however those manufacturers are willing to provide detailed schematics straight out of their CAD package, service procedures, jigs, software, training and trust to independent service facilities, many others would rather either keep the business for themselves or not get involved in the liability. I haven't come across anything as bad as that light-bulb DRM timer, that has to just be a cash grab, no reason why that can't be field serviceable, at the end of the day the trained surgeon can just use it wrong and the patient dies, I don't see why the risk of a trained technician repairing it wrong resulting in the same outcome is somehow an unacceptable risk considering the time and cost advantages could result in having more/better resources at a hospital, it's like the trolley bus problem of ethical non-OEM medical repairs and right to repair could pull that leaver to save several people but at the cost of one with bad optics. I do however regularly see hardware DRM in consumer products, I had a Samsung printer that counted down pages before it blew an OTP fuse and demanded the drum be replaced despite not having any issues with print quality, it was hacked and used until it was out of toner and then thrown in e-waste, bought a replacement printer from a different company without anti-consumer hardware DRM.
This needs to reach a wider audience. "Of course not medical equipment" is something I think most people, including me, have thought in relation to right-to-repair. That probably would be fair if "Of course, not medical equipment" also applied to not profiteering, delays in repairs, gouging on repair costs, etc.
I used to be a maintenance electrician for a large oil company, (with their headquarters based in London). I've been told off for repairing, rather than replacing equipment. I don't see why you need to pay hundreds if not thousands of pounds for a replacement, if replacing a diode for a few cents can do the job. I can't bring myself to throw equipment away, that only has a simple repair needed. If I see a label that says: this item is not serviceable, it translates to challenge accepted.
Company's don't like qualified personnel that can do qualified tasks they want that everything can be handled by monkeys because monkeys can't ask for a rise, start a union or just something totally outright insane like demanding to be treated like a human being and not like some disposable replacement bot.
One of the biggest causes of medical price bloat is lawsuits. When a patient sues, their lawyers don't just sue the doctor and the hospital. If it was a surgery, they sue the maker of the table they laid on, the gown manufacturers, the light bulb makers, EVERYONE. This is a cost of doing business in the medical field at this point.
My local hospital’s biomed team needs to smash all unfixable devices, if someone got ahold of broken equipment when it’s thrown away and it somehow it hurt a patient then the hospital could become liable, displays need to be smashed, cords need to be cut, everything needs to be completely destroyed, if one part can’t be fixed every other part of the machine has to be made completely beyond repair
@@AldenJohnson I may not be quite getting something, but how is a hospital liable if someone dumpster dives for broken equipment and someohow hurts themselves on it? I'd understand if it was hazardous waste, say fabric covered with fluids from someone who is infected by a diseas, and it wasn't disposed of correctly. But this doesn't make sense to me when it comes to equipment.
30 year retired Biomed here. Career started in the US AirFore/ Reserves, major university hospital, and finishing my career with one of the “top three” OEM manufacture. There is no licensure but there is a variety of AAMI certifications can be obtained. Been there, seen all of this…. One thing to remember is a small thing called Life Safety / Risk Management. You do the mod in house … you assume all liability as an institution/organization. You have to maintain the devices as per the manufactures recommendations. You also have to maintain meticulous documentation. The institutions will be inspected by the state and feds. If you don’t …. And you have a patient injury the lawyers will have a field day. Would you want a microscope lamp to blow while the surgeon is in the middle of someone’s brain? I personally don’t see a problem with just replacing the lamp inside the module and resetting the timer… but I wouldn’t try to push the lamp beyond what the manufacture recommends . Yes parts are stupidly expensive. Those machines…. Especially high end imaging (MRI, CT, Vascular/Diagnostic X-ray) generate a ton of cash and OEMs know this and they get a premium price for the parts and if needed OEM onsite service. They also push service contracts. Parts only contracts, which the in-house engineer installs (which requires OEM factory training/certification…which isn’t cheap) or full onsite OEM service. Biomedical Engineering is a great career. You have to deal with electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics, and mechanics. You can’t go wrong with it!
Current Field engineer for an OEM. I had one site that was complaining they their patient monitors were failing. They were repairing them with third party parts that were no where close to ours. The irony is they were trained and the shop used to be run by the same OEM. They also had a parts warranty that was in effect yet were buying third party parts when they could have had them for free from us.
That’s another thing. Most in house shops now have been outsourced to a third party vendor. One day your working for the hospital….. then the next day your working for another company.
What you're basically saying is that this is a systemic error and starts with hospitals not being allowed to choose their own risk level. This problem is not limited to tools and equipment, but doctors as well. The daily work of most doctors ain't more complex than the work of carpenter, yet the crooked government demands you study for seven years. This means I don't have a choice to buy services from a doctor with three months of education: systemic error in the health industry.
I am resonating with these guys more and more every day. I do commercial kitchen equipment repairs for control boards, interface boards, and control panels. For a fast food business that makes 10-15 cents per dollar to dump back into the business, purchasing four fryer control panels for $1400 per panel, vs purchasing a new fryer at $16k, any added failure to the fryer points towards replacement with new. Fortunately I work for this company on their payroll, and I can repair the $1400 control panels for $30 in tactile switches, and maybe $15 in capacitors (worst case scenario). This is allowing us to dump more and more cash flow into the higher wages needed to keep the restaurants running, and keep our pricing lower than the competition. The cost of replacement, and "warranties being voided" if items are repaired outside of the manufacturer's preference is just ridiculous. It clearly isn't just in one or two industries, but in pretty much any industry that involves application specific machinery/equipment, and the average technician cannot repair these things because they are made out to be so complex, that the time taken to R&D the device often outweighs the cost savings (to most CEOs). Lucky for me repairing electronics comes natural to me, and I am very passionate about it. I value the knowledge more than the compensation, but I am also compensated well for what I can do, as finding someone in a fast food industry who is willing to do electronics and equipment repair for that company and that company only, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it SHOULD be a no brainer to develop and defend having someone competent on the payroll.
I used to work for a company that makes anesthesia machines in a technical capacity. We deployed Windows machines that parsed info from various sensors and then sent them to a database server. While I agree with everything R2R, it's not *just* the manufacturers that are the problem. In order to bring this product to market, we had to custom build the hardware and get the FDA to approve it, at great cost. Realistically, all we really should have needed is a standard PC with an optically isolated RS232 card, and a way to strap it to the machine. Because of this huge upfront sunk cost they need to recover their investment. Look to government regulation as a big part of the high price of service of this equipment.
If your equipment is custom-built can it not be qualified for a patent application that would guarantee a 20 year monopoly exemption from competition? That would take care of dealing with recouping the upfront costs of putting the equipment out to market, right?🤔
@@willia3r doubt it. I think everything there would be covered by prior art. They were off the shelf parts, except for the case and the software. The feds had to approve the config for OR use.
@@EasyMac308 how do you know unless you actually try? I just dont see any point in scuttling RtR for your issuer, if it’s not a situation of your equipment being a proprietary configuration. And I am more than willing to aggressively debate the issue in front of lawmakers if necessary.
@@willia3r I'm not scuttling R2R, I'm pointing out that the government's regulation makes things unnecessarily expensive for the manufacturer of medical devices, which will get passed to the customer. It's not either/or, it's both.
@@EasyMac308 there is a thin line between government regulation increasing manufacturer's costs to put the equipment to market versus the manufacturer purposely designing an unnecessary mechanism (serializing parts, soldering parts to remove 3rd party access) that increases the costs of the equipment being purchased on the market. Its time that this debate is finally hashed out.
So true! "If it happens to one its happening to others." I had a kitchen light with a broken switch that made it useless and the only place to get the unbranded switch was the other side of the world so I bought 30 switches stuck them on auction with the model of light I own in the title and I sell 5 switches a year. Fixing something once is finding a business opportunity!
The "I can most certainly try to fix it" mentality is definitely a character trait more people need. I love seeing these guys doing this work when I cannot.
One of my fave guest speakers!! So good to see this level of passion, and rightly so. For too long our industries have been plagued by corporate grifters selling components with extortionate markup.
This is what I was referring to once in the chat! This stuff needs more attention the level of care impacts everyone’s quality of life when it’s needed at some point. We need more right to repair our bodies we have the technology it’s just in the hands of the few. Medicine is so advanced now we are on the edge of several breakthroughs.
I'm a BMET 2 4 years into my career just passed the CBET in November of '23 and honestly I think this is a very rewarding career and I love what I do. Thank you both for advocating for techs in all fields.
@@BetterBiomedChannel Had to say the same, your enthusiasm and energy delivering all this information was enjoyable to watch. I also had never heard of this field or even thought it would exist. I would have thought that due to legal reasons they'd have everything repaired by the book by the manufacturer.
Anybody willing to fix a broken device for a fraction of it's cost which would otherwise end up in a landfill, it's a great guy. Keeping stuff working for longer helps the environment.
Insurance has been called legalised blackmail aimed at the consumer. With the predilection of consumers to sue the provider insurance companies gain both ways. Practicality goes out the window for those capable.
Pro tip Louis, you can install software which allows your handset to be used as a mic. _So long you're _*_only_*_ using Windows_ Iriun Webcam or DroidCam should work with this and if you want a mic-only solution, _while a bit tedious to set up_ WO Mic also works. So next time if you're caught off-guard like that your handset can be set up to act as a mic in some capacity.
UHHH I don't know medical equipment but I know projector bulbs! They *ALL* run well past their rated hours, and that safety margin is there because their final mode of failure IS sometimes explosion and (depending on the circuit driving it) there isn't always much of a warning.
This why we need right to repair. To not need a mortgage to replace a lightbulb. I was recently able to fix a tablet containing pictures of a deceased relative, the only issue was a broken connector preventing it from being charged. That kind of repair should be cheap because it’s not that difficult to do, however most manufacturers don’t want that. Heres to hoping this will improve in the future. In the mean time I’ll keep doing what what you guys do, educate people that repair is an option.
I remember paying about 69 dollars for Oshram replacement bulbs used in projection TVs. Other than the USB add on I don't think the lamp is any different than the lamps used in projection TVs.
LOL, most of us can relate to Louis' reaction to 'cutting' 57:07, but to see him visibly shuffling around is funny. It's one thing to be injured/cut, shock is amazing, it's quite another to be imagine it.
HillRom is huge. Saw a local company to Milwaukee, Mortara (had been a customer for many many years) get bought up by WelchAllyn, which was already a huge company, and within a year it was bought up by HillRom. Within a few months after they took all product out of our facility and moved it overseas (presumably)
The US doesn't have a requirement for medical device suppliers to support/repair their devices for any length of time. This results in companies deciding they want to force sales of their new product and making the last generation "end of life", forcing out the old equipment and in the new. One recent example is Stryker dropping support for their video tower (1488) equipment with less than 1 year of notice, and within 4 years of ending sales of the device. This forces hospitals to spend millions on new equipment in very short order. Each tower is approx $100k, and large hospitals tend to have many of these in use.
Louis, I wish I could have a talk with you about this stuff. I have designed hardware for everything from home automation systems, military radar systems, sat communication systems as well as repaired avionics and oil-field systems. There is a lot of stuff that is lost in what this guy is saying about medical stuff and could really help out with your right to repair debates. One of the big things that needs to be considered is the certification for these components and systems. For example, I could sell a radar system for $20k that doesn't go on an aircraft, but literally the exact same system, but it's certified to go on an aircraft, will cost $100k. The main reason for the cost difference is all of the testing/certifications can cost several million dollars, and the number of products that can be sold to offset that cost is much lower than the number of units that can be sold for $20k. Essentially R&D costs for the aviation unit are $10M and the normal unit the cost is $2M. I would really love to go over a lot of this with you so that you can get insight as to why a lot of these products cost what they do. The same thing goes with the cost to repair. There has to be more safety measures in place for repairing a level 3 pcb than a level 2 or 1 pcb. I like where you are going with this right to repair, and I feel like there are some things that I haven't heard you mention in these debates that could really help out.
It could be the same for even the light bulb in that assembly. Extra testing, spectral measurement where they use only bulbs that are within a very small window of variation. Having a light whose characteristics are off could be the difference between seeing something important or having it blend in. This is just speculation, but it provides some ideas that may make the high cost justified.
@@tweetyusnews There are definitely cases like this where the coding is the huge difference in price. Like with a Tesla, all of the hardware is present for the full self driving, but the coding is what you pay for. This shows there are times where the cost to develop the unseen things (like software) needs to be taken into account.
@@gblargg That point is a good way to look at it. Another example is a light bulb in a projector and that same bulb, with some kapton tape, could be used in a medical instrument during surgery. Think about what would happen if the projector bulb failed versus the bulb failing during surgery and the result of that failure would mean stopping the surgery and having to redo the surgery at a later date. The way to prevent that failure is to test the bulb and verifying it is within that small window of variation that you're talking about, because if it's outside of that window, it has a potential to fail during surgery. This approach is why aviation is so expensive. A lot of the parts on an aircraft engine are still good when they are removed or replaced. The reason is that if those parts have been used for so many hours and after that amount of hours, failure starts becoming more likely and having an engine fail while you're flying isn't good. So a lot of stuff gets replaced while it is still working and everything else gets looked at to make sure it is still within it's small window of variation.
I worked as a validation Engineer in the medical device co. and all of our equipment had to be calibrated with equipment that also has been calibrated by a technician who has his cert showing he is "calibrated. He will follow test protocols that have been written by an engineer who had to test his protocol by having 3 other techs who havent seen the procedure to make sure the protocol is written without bias so that they can get the same result. In the medical industry you cant take a shit unless the toilet in in cal..
Was a biomed in the AF and now in the guard, we are often lucky in the military, getting special access to parts and training from the manufacturers as we were such a large client and operated in places the vendors couldn't provide support. Full time I work in a lab often repairing specialized lab equipment since it's needed so badly. The vendors themselves are losing expertise and understanding of their equipment because they only learn how to replace entire assemblies. The wastes, costs and downtime are getting crazy because extremely simple fixes are purposefully made impossible or hidden in order to sell expensive service contracts that are essentially just insurance.
I'm a Diesel mechanic. Flat rate has been the name of the game for years in bigger shops. Although it's based on the job your doing and not just a blanket cost for everything that comes in.
Looks like a bulb I used to use in my Sony projection tv back in the day. Why not LED now? They are super bright! This guy is a great guest!!! His UA-cam channel looks interesting!
The new light sources are active cooled LED. They are also $$$$. LEDs sometimes allow for changing the color temperature which helps differentiate tissues during surgery.
I am servicing ultrasound devices as independent repair in Poland it make me learn hacking(asm decoding looking for service password inside). I do mostly GE/Philips/BKmedical/Hitachi .The funniest I found is Gandalf / Loki / moani :)
I had a temp job for a bio med company. This was in Peoria IL, replacing batteries and testing IV pumps. They told us the job would take 2 months. They specifically hired people who lived an hour away minimum from this big city that I'm sure had plenty of people who would love to work. Paid 25 an hour plus 52 cents a mile to drive. The made a point to tell us over and over to never talk to hospital staff. We got it done in 2 weeks because the hospital realized it was a scam. Idk how the scam works exactly but they were basically milking the hospital for every penny.
I have a few things about this video. 1. He mentions he is cleaning and sterilizing equipment. He is not trained in that. Biomeds are given basic cleaning instructions 2. If an OEM performs a PM and you see it is garbage you call them and have your c suite bring this up to them. Is someone is pencil whipping PMs they will get them fired very quickly. Also if you didn’t notice till the next day what are your biomeds doing? One they should be getting the equipment back in service as soon as it is done as well as spot checking the equipment. 3. So,etching a simple as resetting a light bulb hour count may seem like a good idea. The high intensity bulbs don’t just burn out. They will stop in the middle of a case. You could shut it off and restart and it may work. It is like the bulbs in my Prius. 4. A hospital is trading liability for having OEM service equipment vs in house. If there is a patient injured because of a possible equipment problem if it is under an OEM agreement I can assure you they want every log pulled and everything tested. If it turns out that it was a OEM problem they pass the liability on to them. If it was in-house then the hospital is on the hook. 5. The first look contract he mentions use high end equipment. I work with telemetry monitoring and a first look for the biomed could be a simple as does everything have power and the correct lights on. Can’t tell you how many calls have been a UPS died. Final thing. When you are done with a repair or PM would you want yourself or another family member hooked up to that machine? That is the ultimate question. My kids were born at a hospital that I had installed the equipment.
I am from Ukraine, and yeah, original company repairs usually aren't available for medical equipment, mostly engineers who made a career like that, help hospitals to go through it. If not them, most equipment would be just broken and patients would not be able to receive the medical care. And yeah, used medical equipment is popular, as it's expensive to buy the new devices, especially in the smaller cities
I think your question about the profitability of the strategy of making repair difficult would make a fascinating topic for an MBA thesis. What about companies that treat their employees like **** vs with respect?
Excellent interview. Not in Bio-Med, but a similar high tech world. Repair semi-conductor manufacturing equipment. Yes access to OEM manuals and specifications is slim to none. Most equipment is reverse engineered to find out the function, and specifications for repairs. We write our own technical procedures for testing, troubleshooting, repair, and calibration. Equipment is mostly with the photo lithography equipment, so this includes wafer handling, robotics, optics, yes light sources such as viable, laser, and deep UV. Alignment is critical to properly register chip layers, and the operation of the robotics to do this is what I repair. Yes the job is high tech, and the field pays well for those able to do the job. If Louis wants to escape the consumer sector and move into a commercial sector, there are plenty of openings for technicians with very good basic troubleshooting skills. As mentioned, this often means reverse engineering a component, in order to learn how it works and parameters used. Using JTAG, I squared C device programmers is normal daily processes to assess, troubleshoot and repair equipment.
worked on all kinds of equipment for research and medical training. Slime is common in water chilled systems. The microscope bulb is looking like a repurposed UV lamp that has been used for years. They have substituted LEDS for many things driven this way. Did it for 19 years. Check out balances and scales for locked out software.
As a former biomed (I went to monitor school IABP school laser school etc) who works for an OEM- I recognize there is a scrappiness to the Biomed that wants to be on the same level, but the biomed is tied to too many pieces of equipment it’s no longer possible for them to be the experts. 20 years ago it wasn’t so bad, but now the complexity has been incorporated into the software and equipment is consolidating functions. ( not to mention networking everything) i don’t believe the Biomed has to be the expert in everything but are a great resource as the first responders. I think there are a couple reasons mfg want to keep service in house. 1.The FDA/government regulations and compliance. 2. Access to customers. Service is often the ONLY face the customer sees after the sales whirlwind finishes with a device sale. I’ve seen biomeds take a piece of equipment down for weeks and the users blame the equipment leading to a poor image of the product/manufacturer. I applaud your resourcefulness and hope you can find ways to make things better for everyone. I agree costs of many parts are ridiculous. I’ve seen a $5 part go from $100 just because it started being sold to a distributor for their repair requirements. There are plenty pieces of equipment in a hospital that are not related to critical care or life support that are perfect for repair. I know these comments are disjointed but I’m writing as I listen 😁 I work on a device that takes over a year to become an expert when you’re working on it regularly not to mention the over $25k in specialized test equipment. I don’t think most hospitals are willing to make the investment into the equipment to maintain only one device. They would rather take a chance for a couple years without a contract and calling us for repairs/PM’s at an hourly rate. Sadly Biomed pay is low and they are not respected in many institutions which made it difficult for me to be fulfilled and feel I was making a difference. I know if I ever have to fall back on my old troubleshooting skills I know the things I’m learning from this channel will help. Thank you both!
You are absolutely right! Certain things I always recommend to hospitals for full service contracts: perfusion machines, refrigeration / freezers, surgical robots and navigation units are all excellent examples.
I spent part of my career, about 15 years, as a hispital biomed, and another 15 years as OEM service engineer working for medical laser companies. The biomed job was nice because of the variety, but it's difficult to become an expert on anything. OEM you become an expert, but miss out on the variety. As a biomed tech, it's important to know your limitations, and when to call the experts. As an OEM tech, I dreaded working on equipment that had been botched by a biomed who got in over his head. In most cases it would've been cheaper in the long run for the biomed to call in the OEM.
IDK. Maybe you're right: some tech is so advanced that repairablity is impossible. As far as being politically aware, these individual fringe cases are irrelevant. 99% of this is product design aimed at preventing repair. Even the least repairable devices COULD include some level of modular design to reduce waste. The onus is not on us consumers to hand wave the layman's ignorance of irreprable microscopic tech. It is the responsibility of manyfacturers to justify skyricketing costs subsidized by our insurance & gov't subsidies. We call them private companies, but how private can they really be when they start with a business model designed to bypass consumers & profit from publically funded institutions?
15:45 as a german electrical engineer it took a month to study the regulations and obtain the license just to do standard electrician work inside a hospital!
@@eelcosterringa1374 How exactly they cowboys ?. People like this know more than manufacture approved 'professionals' on most occasions, who are no more than board swap monkeys on most occasions and know nothing about actually diagnosing and fixing boards.
You inspire me, I just went and bought a simple adaptor, bought a 10kg CO2 bottle, can refill my Sodastream bottle 22x for 37Euro instead of 22x8=172Euro minus the 50Euro adaptor so i already save >85Euro only for the first refill :). I feel like a winner :) Thanks :)
I have not repaired a lot of things, but I am quite pleased by it when I can. My father has an electric stand-up chair with reclining function. At some point it stopped working. I found that the problem was just a cable break in the remote, a simple fix (even if keeping the twisted cord straightened out while carefully cutting the insulation (didn't have a better tool at hand than a knife) almost gave me a cramp). Last year the case of my bicycle's front light broke. It was already somewhat cold anyway and I instead drove to work with my car for the winter. Around christmas I bought myself a 3D printer because I wanted one and need more hobbies anyway. The next couple months I learned some 3D modeling (just learning by doing, no courses), and when spring arrived I pushed myself to finish the light case. The end result is far from perfect - I had to wrap it with sticky tape to keep the inner part from wobbling around, but with that bit of tape it now functions again. There has been other things, but those stand out in my memory. With the bike in particular I considered just buying a replacement, but it really nagged at me that the main bits were all still fine. Oh, and I've replaced a mouse scroll wheel, a mouse cable, a mouse button (sadly I've stopped using that mouse by now because of... er, I don't remember) and XBox 360 Controller shoulder buttons. Again, I considered buying replacements, but especially with these bits I was quite certain I had the skill to repair it.
@@groundcontrol6876 Hm, I don't think so. But the mouse was in constant use from early 2013/2014 until 2021, and the controller from about 2014 or 2015 until now. And I spend far too much time using them^^.
It'll be odd if us Aussies lead the way in R2R.. because we are such a nanny state. If any electrical/plumbing is broken(or not), it's illegal for us to touch it. (and it's costly, I've seen a $500USD bill for a power outlet to be replaced). And if you want to access the codes (Standards) to sneak in your own repair, or even just to check your electrician/plumber did the job to code, well, you have to pay hundreds of bucks (dollarydoos) to obtain the codes, because our gov. leased monopoly rights on them to a private company for the past 20 years (that agreement has ended.. so now it seems there's merely a duopoly)
I can understand why there is a timer on the bulb, cant be fun being in the middle of a important surgery and the light goes out. That said, it should ofcours be simple to reset when the bulb is swapped. I would love to get into medical equipment repair, it sounds super interesting! Need to find out how that works in my country!
@@BetterBiomedChannel You're very welcome! I subscribed to your channel too! I like to buy used microscopes and try to fix them up :) Where does one go to buy old microscopes and stuff from hospitals and research labs? Do they have auctions normally or do you need to know someone on the inside?
I'm an auto tech. People don't even realize a check engine light for a lazy thermostat will cause your GM cars remote start to not function. Seeing this kind of thing left and right. They will start disabling comfort features to pressure the consumer to fix other items. Check engine light comes on, throw some anti-lock brake codes to disable traction control. When that doesn't work, drop the temp gauge to full cold. What a world we live in. Forced to do things since they can't legally require us to do them.
In the semiconductor industry, we replace 10K worth of consumables per tool and the parts come back dirty (not clean room clean) after refurbishing. This easily costs thousands per day because machines need to purge and recondition to near space vacuum. Lately I have been coming back to thoughts of going back into biomed and making license free equipment, but I am legally impaired to go through the motions. Any OEM refurbishing company we have worked with has dropped the ball recently and I believe its such a niche market that we will pay more for increasingly deteriorating services in the future. All thanks to lawyers that only care about themselves and keep using scorched earth tactics.
Louis, you are an ambassador. Not just for the Right-to-Repair community but for the UA-cam community as well. I've been watching you do your thing for about the last 5 years give or take. And I absolutely find the most entertainment when you do these cross channel segments with other content creators. It really shows but there is a community and there is support and friendships to be had and finding like-minded and influential people and collaborating with them is a very awesome and positive thing. I think I enjoyed this video more than I have some of your other ones in a while but I will say that since I started watching you until today you have consistently improved the quality of the content that you bring us. You have never wavered from your convictions. You bring us true and factual content with a level of confidence and knowledge well never coming off as arrogant. Maybe just a little smug but never arrogant. 🤫. You are a resource, an authority, and a role model. Truly an ambassador for the people. 🫡
that argument with a manager can be cut short in a second by saying "do we need to get the hospital's lawyers involved with liability over contaminated equipment?"
Thanks for bringing up the medical device repairs. Its bullshit what some OEMs do. You shouldn't need an OEM certified john doe as the only service person for simple stuff like servicing a PC connected to an equipment, or replacing common shit like power supplies or power buttons.
A friend of mine is a recently-retired opthamologist. He's a hobbyist luthier, and he likes to make ukuleles. He had a piece of equipment that was still working, but it was missing a few screws. When he tried to order them the manufacturer told him he needed to send it in for repair, because replacing the screws was like microsurgery. "Perfect. Microsurgery is what I do every day. Send me the damn screws."
BTW: As I write this I'm waiting for AAA to come replace a battery in my wife's VW. Yesterday I discovered that my OBDII reader doesn't support 2015 cars, and I can't "re-code" the car for the new battery. Replacing an automotive lead-acid battery requires computer inputs to the charging system.
I was watching Scotty Kilmer on his car repair channel. On the Toyota Prius a new back up screen on car cost eight thousand dollars. It's just a screen like in a cheap tablet. YOu can buy a used sreen for 200 from a car junk yard.
service/repair is about logic and common sense with the understanding of how the parts (in specific area of technology ) works and quickly figure out how things work or suppose to work to figure out where the fault is most likely to be and fix it
Well, now I know how I got a bone infection from surgery. Ruined my life Sure wish that guy would have been at that hospital and argued to properly clean the tools they used
One reason why this stuff is so expensive is because of standards, regulations and certifications driving the costs up. Somewhere, the risk was identified that an exploding light bulb could harm someone. Then hundreds of man-hours were spent to find a solution, writing documents, reviewing, explaining it to regulators, verifying and validating.
Oh my god, this man most definitely saved lives by fighting to properly sterilize that equipment. To have OEM technicians certify equipment was properly maintained when it OBVIOUSLY WASN'T is not only infuriating, but also incredibly dangerous to patients.
"Staffers are very powerful", and almost all of them are hired from the D.C. area. That's why members of Congress should be required to have their office and staff in their home district and telecommute by default with the rest of Congress. They can go to D.C. for ceremonial purposes but the great majority of their term should be spent with them physically in the district or state that sent them to Congress. DRM should be forbidden in anything that's not based on actual patentable or copyrightable property.
I didn't know about the Keurig, I use a reusable basket and grounds because I like my own choice in fresh ground beans, and I think the cups are wasteful. That's flippin wild.
I went to school for Biomed and left the field after 1 week because of the ridiculous bureaucracy attached to every stage of product development, assembly and sales. the whole industry is bonkers, and not just in the US, but especially here when it comes to price gouging despite lack of quality. Thankfully most of the skills I acquired translated well into general electronics engineering, but I fully empathize with anyone being scared away from the field. No wonder we have a shortage.
I modified BIOS in a PC I was building for my wife so it could boot from a NVME drive on a NVME to PCIE adapter (it didn't have M.2 slots or anything like that.) Where there is a will there's a way. If you mess up your BIOS you can brick your board. Meaning you have to get some special but not that expensive equipment to refresh your BIOS chip. But that in itself is a slippery slope. Either way, it's our risk to take as consumers. I bought it I reserve the right to fix or flop it.
Louis, I know this is completely unrelated, but I recently learned that the BMW subscription thing wasn’t for all cars. Basically they are making the stock model the same as the model with all the features but making it so that if you want those features on the stock that’s theoretically not meant to have them, you need to pay slightly extra. Also it’s not forced as a subscription, you can still pay in full and keep it forever if you would like. I forgot mostly what was discussed in your original video but I want to know if this changes much. Also it’s still quite weird to charge money for already-implemented technology, as it’s not like it costs them to turn it on… but I guess it makes sense if it doesn’t make something that was free forced in a subscription/payment. I was also thinking this could help the used market, as if the original owner didn’t get an option you’d want you can just one time pay for it and get it. Without needing to pay a higher price or get a worse deal that has that feature included.
I'm just a few minutes in but I'm already seeing that light as if a private company turned off your car and told you to buy a new one once it hit a certain mileage and said the reason was because "safety." Everyone would scream that it was BS and it was just profiteering. Medical equipment OEMS get away with this because most people don't know about it.
![[RANT] The lower rungs on the economic ladder are gone](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUYUzlRgt_Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![[RANT] The lower rungs on the economic ladder are gone](/img/tr.png)
I am 4 minutes in and having flash backs to my first tech job fresh out of CompTIA training working for a genetics equipment manufacturer whose name I will not say. Now I work for State hospitals in IT and it is exactly like this guy has said so far within the first 4 minutes.
You know how many calls I get where I want to fix something but cannot because some vendor has a contract? Meanwhile, a nurses is freaking out because she cannot print the medication labels for the pharmacy to get the patient who I can hear screaming in the background and you already know it is the third time they've called this month only to have the vendor not really do anything. I mean some techs do, but others not so much and yeah some of that is a learning curve but sometimes not so much; and we do keep back up equipment for everything because of situations like the above, but then someone has to go to the nurses station and grab a new cart etc.
For me the Right to Repair is not so much about saving $$$$ it is about getting those labels printed fixed quickly so that the patient can get their damn medication rather than waiting on a contracted city approved vendor technician from the manufacturer.
...of course there is a chance I don't know the half of it and maybe keeping the vendor and contractor employment scheme saves the city money making Healthcare affordable in the city, but I feel like care would be better if we were all hired and certified by the vendors so that dispatching could be direct.
I have experience working in the Medical/Healthcare IT sector, it's not even just limited to the hardware or PT Support Equipment nowadays. I vividly remember being on the help desk trying to help Docs/RN/Hospitalists figure out the extremely convoluted systems. As much as they spend on Medical Equipment and Flat Rate Repairs, they spend double on the systems they employ for a year until they "have extra fiscal budget" and redo all of the systems again leaving the staff to relearn, retrain, and remove focus from the patient to deal with a Computer System.
Not to mention all of the staff on the IT side engage in the same antics the hospital staff engage in with Departmental Politics (IE: I don't fix this, send it to the group who does *sends ticket back to help desk*) is it so hard to sit down and send that ticket where it needs to go when PT care is on the line?
I worked for that hospital 3 times (Once in the IT dept as a contractor, then as full-time, then coming back as a Temp Contractor for a 2 week go-live) they paid me more hourly to sit at a desk out of the way of everyone in the hospital than trying to keep the staff afloat.
Good to see people wanting to create and drive change to actually SUPPORT the staff. I work in Financial IT, as a basement dweller I don't wanna go back to the trenches of Hospital IT, not unless there are god's honest attempts at removing sheer madness surrounding stuff that shouldn't be the way it is.
@@bzbrian-wav6997 Gosh I know everyone goes Financial Sector. I get offers for 3-4 times as much but I think the reason so much stuff just gets pushed off to someone else is due to how many people rotate through the revolving door of Medical IT so I don't really want to leave.
Plus it isn't the genetic industry. I cannot go back to working in that branch of medical IT. Literally it is a field entrenched with mostly neo-nazis who pump out pseudo-scientific propaganda or mad scientist who decided it was the most intelligent course of action to genetically engineer viruses in the most populated cities on earth instead of doing that sort of lab work out in the sticks where there is no one around to get infected making outbreaks more manageable. I mean good stuff has come out of genetics but not much by comparison to how much awful it has caused what with the human lives it has cost globally several times now.
Come to think of it.... for all those PhDs most of these doctors don't seem all that smart. What with their willingness to pay over $2,000 for a light bulb and all the above. Just saying... >.>
I hear its also similar in the US military. They have their own engineering units with some of the most talented people...carpenters, mechanics, electricians, people that specialise in working with metals as wielders and fabricators.
BUT. They all have to wait for that one guy from HP when their printer brakes down because thats how the contract works... I heard this a while back so im not sure if its still the same now but i assume nothing has changed.
@@Rose.Of.Hizaki pretty much, I think everyone in every sector has a large stake in the Right to Repair, HP makes crappy printers, they have some of the worst support I've worked with and you gotta wait to get it fixed by them.
Lenovo is starting to head in the direction of "pay for a warranty" so we fix the machine no matter what it is. It's all heading the same way where they basically just keep us out of our own machines
@@bzbrian-wav6997 the best printer I ever had was given to me three years ago as garbage because it was 40 years old and they thought they needed to replace it. It had... refillable inks... that's right! Now I know these days such a thing unheard but I assure you they did/do exist and there literally wasn't a thing wrong with it. The ink was still available since it is just color and no fancy cartridge. In fact a refill was about $0.80 for purple and that would refill the cartridge about 3 times within the life cycle of the jar or injector.
It never jammed, never broke, never failed in any way. It was just old. I sold it to some church for $80 plus shipping and called it a charity deal. That ancient beast could out pace any modern Cannon printer today.
I used to repair EEG equipment made by a small manufacturer. Ancient times ago I repaired TVs and VCRs. These kind of interviews are very interesting to me.
I got my Journeyman ISCET certification in consumer electronics as i too started with television, VCR, CD, Audio, Repair when I left the Navy in the early 1980's. Now I have done, Radar, 2 way radio, paging, broadcast TV and Radio, Marine Electronics, and now semi-conductor electronics, including robotics and temperature control systems. No degree, no student loans, but a lifetime of training in the field.
I have a lucrative career but it unfulfilling. I have always found an immense satisfaction when I repair something. I hope the world turns full circle someday and the idea of a standalone repair shop for all consumer goods becomes feasible like it was in the 60's.
Awesome to see Better Biomed with one of my favorite content creators. I have been a biomedical equipment technician for 10 years now (started with the US Army biomed program) and right to repair is extremely important to us, we are constantly price gouged by vendors. We have a daily battle to be able to properly troubleshoot and repair our hospital devices, component level troubleshooting and repair is a dying art and OEMs are part of what is killing it.
Hope things improve. For my part I'm trying to push for repairable equipment, but things are hard.
Love how passionate this guy is
I didn't realize that's how medical equipment repair worked, but I'm not surprised
Medical repair is an amazing but complex industry.
@@BetterBiomedChannel See if you can have a sit down with @MDGPremium to discuss why they design it this way. He has a weekly phone call maybe he can get you in.
The lightbulbs at the beginning is a good example of why we need to allow certified technicians to repair things and not just the manufacturer. The manufacturer not wanting to take the liability of a bulb failing and someone dying because of it makes sense. But not allowing certified technicians to replace it is actually risking lives.
If you charge too much to fix something then someone will create a workaround. That workaround has not been tested. So not allowing certified technicians to fix it forces a percentage of people to hack it making the product more dangerous not less.
Here's a workaround for you - manufacture equipment in a way so there is a fallback. Nothing would stop anyone from incorporating a dedicated sensor per light which would be cause for a fallback bulb and quiet, yet annoying piezo-electric beeper to sound until serviced.
A certification process will only invite more corruption into the mix. Who will oversee the certificates? The manufacturer? The government, whose payed off by the manufacturer?
There should be no certification process for repairing such items, only reputation and trust should limit such things because otherwise you just invite corruption.
@nejch1568 I disagree. Plenty of industries void your warranty if it is touched by a non certified technician. The certification is either a class requirement or a test requirement specified by the manufacturer. My solar panels would not have a warranty if the installer was not certified. High end audio gear looses it warranty if a tech is not certified.
With medical gear you don’t just want it to work for 5 minutes after someone works on it. You need it to work guaranteed. A fingerprint on a bulb like that can cause an early failure. Wires routed incorrectly can cause a failure. A manufacturer should not be liable for someone dying if the device was not fixed to original specifications.
The interview indicates exactly the opposite. Over reliance on contracts with vendors and licenses leads to stagnation and corruption, which then lead to death in this field.
@brigandboy1425 Ok I guess I need to watch it from that point of view and see what I think. Thanks.
When I started working for an independent medical equipment calibration facility in Australia I came across a device a hospital sent in that was being forwarded to the manufacturer in the USA for repair, I intercepted it and took it apart and found some shorted 74 series logic ICs and it was clear the user had plugged in the wrong AC adapter, easy repair, replaced them and re-calibrated it to manufacturer provided procedure and the customer got their device back in 1 week rather than 1-2 months and for half the price (manufacturer does the flat fee repair thing plus international shipping). I now do component level repair on those and other devices regularly for Australian and New Zealand hospitals, however those manufacturers are willing to provide detailed schematics straight out of their CAD package, service procedures, jigs, software, training and trust to independent service facilities, many others would rather either keep the business for themselves or not get involved in the liability.
I haven't come across anything as bad as that light-bulb DRM timer, that has to just be a cash grab, no reason why that can't be field serviceable, at the end of the day the trained surgeon can just use it wrong and the patient dies, I don't see why the risk of a trained technician repairing it wrong resulting in the same outcome is somehow an unacceptable risk considering the time and cost advantages could result in having more/better resources at a hospital, it's like the trolley bus problem of ethical non-OEM medical repairs and right to repair could pull that leaver to save several people but at the cost of one with bad optics.
I do however regularly see hardware DRM in consumer products, I had a Samsung printer that counted down pages before it blew an OTP fuse and demanded the drum be replaced despite not having any issues with print quality, it was hacked and used until it was out of toner and then thrown in e-waste, bought a replacement printer from a different company without anti-consumer hardware DRM.
This needs to reach a wider audience. "Of course not medical equipment" is something I think most people, including me, have thought in relation to right-to-repair.
That probably would be fair if "Of course, not medical equipment" also applied to not profiteering, delays in repairs, gouging on repair costs, etc.
I used to be a maintenance electrician for a large oil company, (with their headquarters based in London). I've been told off for repairing, rather than replacing equipment. I don't see why you need to pay hundreds if not thousands of pounds for a replacement, if replacing a diode for a few cents can do the job. I can't bring myself to throw equipment away, that only has a simple repair needed. If I see a label that says: this item is not serviceable, it translates to challenge accepted.
Company's don't like qualified personnel that can do qualified tasks they want that everything can be handled by monkeys because monkeys can't ask for a rise, start a union or just something totally outright insane like demanding to be treated like a human being and not like some disposable replacement bot.
I love those moments like @23:33, where Louis Rossmann is looking at Louis Rossmann looking at Louis Rossmann looking at Louis Rossmann...
One of the biggest causes of medical price bloat is lawsuits. When a patient sues, their lawyers don't just sue the doctor and the hospital. If it was a surgery, they sue the maker of the table they laid on, the gown manufacturers, the light bulb makers, EVERYONE. This is a cost of doing business in the medical field at this point.
My local hospital’s biomed team needs to smash all unfixable devices, if someone got ahold of broken equipment when it’s thrown away and it somehow it hurt a patient then the hospital could become liable, displays need to be smashed, cords need to be cut, everything needs to be completely destroyed, if one part can’t be fixed every other part of the machine has to be made completely beyond repair
This disgusts me to no end
BS laws and corrupt politicians who make them is the problem.
@@AldenJohnson I may not be quite getting something, but how is a hospital liable if someone dumpster dives for broken equipment and someohow hurts themselves on it?
I'd understand if it was hazardous waste, say fabric covered with fluids from someone who is infected by a diseas, and it wasn't disposed of correctly. But this doesn't make sense to me when it comes to equipment.
@@AldenJohnson That is SO F*ck*d!
30 year retired Biomed here. Career started in the US AirFore/ Reserves, major university hospital, and finishing my career with one of the “top three” OEM manufacture. There is no licensure but there is a variety of AAMI certifications can be obtained. Been there, seen all of this…. One thing to remember is a small thing called Life Safety / Risk Management. You do the mod in house … you assume all liability as an institution/organization. You have to maintain the devices as per the manufactures recommendations. You also have to maintain meticulous documentation. The institutions will be inspected by the state and feds. If you don’t …. And you have a patient injury the lawyers will have a field day. Would you want a microscope lamp to blow while the surgeon is in the middle of someone’s brain? I personally don’t see a problem with just replacing the lamp inside the module and resetting the timer… but I wouldn’t try to push the lamp beyond what the manufacture recommends . Yes parts are stupidly expensive. Those machines…. Especially high end imaging (MRI, CT, Vascular/Diagnostic X-ray) generate a ton of cash and OEMs know this and they get a premium price for the parts and if needed OEM onsite service. They also push service contracts. Parts only contracts, which the in-house engineer installs (which requires OEM factory training/certification…which isn’t cheap) or full onsite OEM service. Biomedical Engineering is a great career. You have to deal with electronics, pneumatics, hydraulics, and mechanics. You can’t go wrong with it!
Current Field engineer for an OEM. I had one site that was complaining they their patient monitors were failing. They were repairing them with third party parts that were no where close to ours. The irony is they were trained and the shop used to be run by the same OEM. They also had a parts warranty that was in effect yet were buying third party parts when they could have had them for free from us.
That’s another thing. Most in house shops now have been outsourced to a third party vendor. One day your working for the hospital….. then the next day your working for another company.
What you're basically saying is that this is a systemic error and starts with hospitals not being allowed to choose their own risk level.
This problem is not limited to tools and equipment, but doctors as well. The daily work of most doctors ain't more complex than the work of carpenter, yet the crooked government demands you study for seven years. This means I don't have a choice to buy services from a doctor with three months of education: systemic error in the health industry.
I am resonating with these guys more and more every day. I do commercial kitchen equipment repairs for control boards, interface boards, and control panels. For a fast food business that makes 10-15 cents per dollar to dump back into the business, purchasing four fryer control panels for $1400 per panel, vs purchasing a new fryer at $16k, any added failure to the fryer points towards replacement with new. Fortunately I work for this company on their payroll, and I can repair the $1400 control panels for $30 in tactile switches, and maybe $15 in capacitors (worst case scenario). This is allowing us to dump more and more cash flow into the higher wages needed to keep the restaurants running, and keep our pricing lower than the competition.
The cost of replacement, and "warranties being voided" if items are repaired outside of the manufacturer's preference is just ridiculous. It clearly isn't just in one or two industries, but in pretty much any industry that involves application specific machinery/equipment, and the average technician cannot repair these things because they are made out to be so complex, that the time taken to R&D the device often outweighs the cost savings (to most CEOs).
Lucky for me repairing electronics comes natural to me, and I am very passionate about it. I value the knowledge more than the compensation, but I am also compensated well for what I can do, as finding someone in a fast food industry who is willing to do electronics and equipment repair for that company and that company only, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, it SHOULD be a no brainer to develop and defend having someone competent on the payroll.
I used to work for a company that makes anesthesia machines in a technical capacity. We deployed Windows machines that parsed info from various sensors and then sent them to a database server.
While I agree with everything R2R, it's not *just* the manufacturers that are the problem. In order to bring this product to market, we had to custom build the hardware and get the FDA to approve it, at great cost. Realistically, all we really should have needed is a standard PC with an optically isolated RS232 card, and a way to strap it to the machine. Because of this huge upfront sunk cost they need to recover their investment.
Look to government regulation as a big part of the high price of service of this equipment.
If your equipment is custom-built can it not be qualified for a patent application that would guarantee a 20 year monopoly exemption from competition?
That would take care of dealing with recouping the upfront costs of putting the equipment out to market, right?🤔
@@willia3r doubt it. I think everything there would be covered by prior art. They were off the shelf parts, except for the case and the software. The feds had to approve the config for OR use.
@@EasyMac308 how do you know unless you actually try?
I just dont see any point in scuttling RtR for your issuer, if it’s not a situation of your equipment being a proprietary configuration.
And I am more than willing to aggressively debate the issue in front of lawmakers if necessary.
@@willia3r I'm not scuttling R2R, I'm pointing out that the government's regulation makes things unnecessarily expensive for the manufacturer of medical devices, which will get passed to the customer. It's not either/or, it's both.
@@EasyMac308 there is a thin line between government regulation increasing manufacturer's costs to put the equipment to market versus the manufacturer purposely designing an unnecessary mechanism (serializing parts, soldering parts to remove 3rd party access) that increases the costs of the equipment being purchased on the market.
Its time that this debate is finally hashed out.
Not a techie at all but love to watch guys who know what their talking about share info.
That was great. I could listen to an hour of anecdotes from you guys, easily.
So true! "If it happens to one its happening to others." I had a kitchen light with a broken switch that made it useless and the only place to get the unbranded switch was the other side of the world so I bought 30 switches stuck them on auction with the model of light I own in the title and I sell 5 switches a year. Fixing something once is finding a business opportunity!
That's an awesome look at a problem situation: opportunity.
Your workshop idea is genius bro. Thanks for continuing to make society a better place despite everything you are going through
I’ve been disabled and in and out of hospitals my whole life and never knew this was a job. I would love that job.
I hope some senators and representatives are watching this.
The "I can most certainly try to fix it" mentality is definitely a character trait more people need. I love seeing these guys doing this work when I cannot.
One of my fave guest speakers!! So good to see this level of passion, and rightly so. For too long our industries have been plagued by corporate grifters selling components with extortionate markup.
Thanks!
This is what I was referring to once in the chat! This stuff needs more attention the level of care impacts everyone’s quality of life when it’s needed at some point. We need more right to repair our bodies we have the technology it’s just in the hands of the few. Medicine is so advanced now we are on the edge of several breakthroughs.
I'm a BMET 2 4 years into my career just passed the CBET in November of '23 and honestly I think this is a very rewarding career and I love what I do. Thank you both for advocating for techs in all fields.
I went to school in MN for Biomed I wish the programs were more well known elsewhere.
This guy is awesome! Keep up the good work!
Thanks!
@@BetterBiomedChannel Had to say the same, your enthusiasm and energy delivering all this information was enjoyable to watch. I also had never heard of this field or even thought it would exist. I would have thought that due to legal reasons they'd have everything repaired by the book by the manufacturer.
@@BetterBiomedChannel You really showed an awesome vibe! I subscribed, will be exciting to see your videos pop up
That are two great guys right there!
Lifts my hope up for humanity a bit!
Anybody willing to fix a broken device for a fraction of it's cost which would otherwise end up in a landfill, it's a great guy. Keeping stuff working for longer helps the environment.
Insurance has been called legalised blackmail aimed at the consumer. With the predilection of consumers to sue the provider insurance companies gain both ways.
Practicality goes out the window for those capable.
Pro tip Louis, you can install software which allows your handset to be used as a mic. _So long you're _*_only_*_ using Windows_ Iriun Webcam or DroidCam should work with this and if you want a mic-only solution, _while a bit tedious to set up_ WO Mic also works. So next time if you're caught off-guard like that your handset can be set up to act as a mic in some capacity.
13:21 "And this is an OEM PM."
Louis:
UHHH I don't know medical equipment but I know projector bulbs!
They *ALL* run well past their rated hours, and that safety margin is there because their final mode of failure IS sometimes explosion and (depending on the circuit driving it) there isn't always much of a warning.
This why we need right to repair. To not need a mortgage to replace a lightbulb. I was recently able to fix a tablet containing pictures of a deceased relative, the only issue was a broken connector preventing it from being charged. That kind of repair should be cheap because it’s not that difficult to do, however most manufacturers don’t want that. Heres to hoping this will improve in the future.
In the mean time I’ll keep doing what what you guys do, educate people that repair is an option.
I remember paying about 69 dollars for Oshram replacement bulbs used in projection TVs. Other than the USB add on I don't think the lamp is any different than the lamps used in projection TVs.
Exactly! Same here. 80-100$ Osram o22
I watch your channel because I repaired TVs for over 15years but have given it up due to costs.
You forgot the "safety tape" on the neck ;)
Thank You Louis for an excellent video showing the scam in BioMed parts too ! Keep doing what you do !
LOL, most of us can relate to Louis' reaction to 'cutting' 57:07, but to see him visibly shuffling around is funny.
It's one thing to be injured/cut, shock is amazing, it's quite another to be imagine it.
HillRom is huge. Saw a local company to Milwaukee, Mortara (had been a customer for many many years) get bought up by WelchAllyn, which was already a huge company, and within a year it was bought up by HillRom. Within a few months after they took all product out of our facility and moved it overseas (presumably)
And themselves taken over as by Baxter
The US doesn't have a requirement for medical device suppliers to support/repair their devices for any length of time. This results in companies deciding they want to force sales of their new product and making the last generation "end of life", forcing out the old equipment and in the new. One recent example is Stryker dropping support for their video tower (1488) equipment with less than 1 year of notice, and within 4 years of ending sales of the device. This forces hospitals to spend millions on new equipment in very short order. Each tower is approx $100k, and large hospitals tend to have many of these in use.
Thank you for making this interview available.
Louis, I wish I could have a talk with you about this stuff. I have designed hardware for everything from home automation systems, military radar systems, sat communication systems as well as repaired avionics and oil-field systems. There is a lot of stuff that is lost in what this guy is saying about medical stuff and could really help out with your right to repair debates. One of the big things that needs to be considered is the certification for these components and systems. For example, I could sell a radar system for $20k that doesn't go on an aircraft, but literally the exact same system, but it's certified to go on an aircraft, will cost $100k. The main reason for the cost difference is all of the testing/certifications can cost several million dollars, and the number of products that can be sold to offset that cost is much lower than the number of units that can be sold for $20k. Essentially R&D costs for the aviation unit are $10M and the normal unit the cost is $2M. I would really love to go over a lot of this with you so that you can get insight as to why a lot of these products cost what they do.
The same thing goes with the cost to repair. There has to be more safety measures in place for repairing a level 3 pcb than a level 2 or 1 pcb. I like where you are going with this right to repair, and I feel like there are some things that I haven't heard you mention in these debates that could really help out.
It could be the same for even the light bulb in that assembly. Extra testing, spectral measurement where they use only bulbs that are within a very small window of variation. Having a light whose characteristics are off could be the difference between seeing something important or having it blend in. This is just speculation, but it provides some ideas that may make the high cost justified.
@@tweetyusnews There are definitely cases like this where the coding is the huge difference in price. Like with a Tesla, all of the hardware is present for the full self driving, but the coding is what you pay for. This shows there are times where the cost to develop the unseen things (like software) needs to be taken into account.
@@gblargg That point is a good way to look at it. Another example is a light bulb in a projector and that same bulb, with some kapton tape, could be used in a medical instrument during surgery. Think about what would happen if the projector bulb failed versus the bulb failing during surgery and the result of that failure would mean stopping the surgery and having to redo the surgery at a later date. The way to prevent that failure is to test the bulb and verifying it is within that small window of variation that you're talking about, because if it's outside of that window, it has a potential to fail during surgery.
This approach is why aviation is so expensive. A lot of the parts on an aircraft engine are still good when they are removed or replaced. The reason is that if those parts have been used for so many hours and after that amount of hours, failure starts becoming more likely and having an engine fail while you're flying isn't good. So a lot of stuff gets replaced while it is still working and everything else gets looked at to make sure it is still within it's small window of variation.
I worked as a validation Engineer in the medical device co. and all of our equipment had to be calibrated with equipment that also has been calibrated by a technician who has his cert showing he is "calibrated. He will follow test protocols that have been written by an engineer who had to test his protocol by having 3 other techs who havent seen the procedure to make sure the protocol is written without bias so that they can get the same result. In the medical industry you cant take a shit unless the toilet in in cal..
Nice to see better biomed on your channel,
Was a biomed in the AF and now in the guard, we are often lucky in the military, getting special access to parts and training from the manufacturers as we were such a large client and operated in places the vendors couldn't provide support. Full time I work in a lab often repairing specialized lab equipment since it's needed so badly. The vendors themselves are losing expertise and understanding of their equipment because they only learn how to replace entire assemblies. The wastes, costs and downtime are getting crazy because extremely simple fixes are purposefully made impossible or hidden in order to sell expensive service contracts that are essentially just insurance.
Hacking the drm on you coffee maker? Like brah. 😅 Thank both of you for your work.
I'm a Diesel mechanic. Flat rate has been the name of the game for years in bigger shops. Although it's based on the job your doing and not just a blanket cost for everything that comes in.
Now, I hope he releases that video so we can hold that manager accountable for a complete lack of care and professionalism.
Looks like a bulb I used to use in my Sony projection tv back in the day. Why not LED now? They are super bright! This guy is a great guest!!! His UA-cam channel looks interesting!
The new light sources are active cooled LED. They are also $$$$. LEDs sometimes allow for changing the color temperature which helps differentiate tissues during surgery.
Gotta love that level of enthusiasm!! Keep on rocking man!
I am servicing ultrasound devices as independent repair in Poland it make me learn hacking(asm decoding looking for service password inside). I do mostly GE/Philips/BKmedical/Hitachi .The funniest I found is Gandalf / Loki / moani :)
What an amazing guy, thank you for bringing him on this was a great watch.
Thanks for your support!
I had a temp job for a bio med company. This was in Peoria IL, replacing batteries and testing IV pumps. They told us the job would take 2 months. They specifically hired people who lived an hour away minimum from this big city that I'm sure had plenty of people who would love to work. Paid 25 an hour plus 52 cents a mile to drive. The made a point to tell us over and over to never talk to hospital staff. We got it done in 2 weeks because the hospital realized it was a scam. Idk how the scam works exactly but they were basically milking the hospital for every penny.
I have a few things about this video.
1. He mentions he is cleaning and sterilizing equipment. He is not trained in that. Biomeds are given basic cleaning instructions
2. If an OEM performs a PM and you see it is garbage you call them and have your c suite bring this up to them. Is someone is pencil whipping PMs they will get them fired very quickly. Also if you didn’t notice till the next day what are your biomeds doing? One they should be getting the equipment back in service as soon as it is done as well as spot checking the equipment.
3. So,etching a simple as resetting a light bulb hour count may seem like a good idea. The high intensity bulbs don’t just burn out. They will stop in the middle of a case. You could shut it off and restart and it may work. It is like the bulbs in my Prius.
4. A hospital is trading liability for having OEM service equipment vs in house. If there is a patient injured because of a possible equipment problem if it is under an OEM agreement I can assure you they want every log pulled and everything tested. If it turns out that it was a OEM problem they pass the liability on to them. If it was in-house then the hospital is on the hook.
5. The first look contract he mentions use high end equipment. I work with telemetry monitoring and a first look for the biomed could be a simple as does everything have power and the correct lights on. Can’t tell you how many calls have been a UPS died.
Final thing. When you are done with a repair or PM would you want yourself or another family member hooked up to that machine? That is the ultimate question. My kids were born at a hospital that I had installed the equipment.
I am from Ukraine, and yeah, original company repairs usually aren't available for medical equipment, mostly engineers who made a career like that, help hospitals to go through it. If not them, most equipment would be just broken and patients would not be able to receive the medical care.
And yeah, used medical equipment is popular, as it's expensive to buy the new devices, especially in the smaller cities
I think your question about the profitability of the strategy of making repair difficult would make a fascinating topic for an MBA thesis. What about companies that treat their employees like **** vs with respect?
I’m guessing that it was MBA’s that dreamed up the present situation.
Great video you too, hoping this topic as always recieves as much visibility as possible
Excellent interview. Not in Bio-Med, but a similar high tech world. Repair semi-conductor manufacturing equipment. Yes access to OEM manuals and specifications is slim to none. Most equipment is reverse engineered to find out the function, and specifications for repairs. We write our own technical procedures for testing, troubleshooting, repair, and calibration. Equipment is mostly with the photo lithography equipment, so this includes wafer handling, robotics, optics, yes light sources such as viable, laser, and deep UV. Alignment is critical to properly register chip layers, and the operation of the robotics to do this is what I repair. Yes the job is high tech, and the field pays well for those able to do the job.
If Louis wants to escape the consumer sector and move into a commercial sector, there are plenty of openings for technicians with very good basic troubleshooting skills. As mentioned, this often means reverse engineering a component, in order to learn how it works and parameters used. Using JTAG, I squared C device programmers is normal daily processes to assess, troubleshoot and repair equipment.
This is awesome
Thanks for sharing
Definitely gonna check his channel out now
If you are going to burn polyps in the lungs you would insert the fiber optics into the trachea (wind pipe) not the esophagus (food pipe)
worked on all kinds of equipment for research and medical training. Slime is common in water chilled systems. The microscope bulb is looking like a repurposed UV lamp that has been used for years. They have substituted LEDS for many things driven this way. Did it for 19 years. Check out balances and scales for locked out software.
As a former biomed (I went to monitor school IABP school laser school etc) who works for an OEM- I recognize there is a scrappiness to the Biomed that wants to be on the same level, but the biomed is tied to too many pieces of equipment it’s no longer possible for them to be the experts. 20 years ago it wasn’t so bad, but now the complexity has been incorporated into the software and equipment is consolidating functions. ( not to mention networking everything) i don’t believe the Biomed has to be the expert in everything but are a great resource as the first responders. I think there are a couple reasons mfg want to keep service in house.
1.The FDA/government regulations and compliance.
2. Access to customers.
Service is often the ONLY face the customer sees after the sales whirlwind finishes with a device sale.
I’ve seen biomeds take a piece of equipment down for weeks and the users blame the equipment leading to a poor image of the product/manufacturer.
I applaud your resourcefulness and hope you can find ways to make things better for everyone. I agree costs of many parts are ridiculous. I’ve seen a $5 part go from $100 just because it started being sold to a distributor for their repair requirements. There are plenty pieces of equipment in a hospital that are not related to critical care or life support that are perfect for repair.
I know these comments are disjointed but I’m writing as I listen 😁
I work on a device that takes over a year to become an expert when you’re working on it regularly not to mention the over $25k in specialized test equipment. I don’t think most hospitals are willing to make the investment into the equipment to maintain only one device. They would rather take a chance for a couple years without a contract and calling us for repairs/PM’s at an hourly rate.
Sadly Biomed pay is low and they are not respected in many institutions which made it difficult for me to be fulfilled and feel I was making a difference.
I know if I ever have to fall back on my old troubleshooting skills I know the things I’m learning from this channel will help.
Thank you both!
You are absolutely right! Certain things I always recommend to hospitals for full service contracts: perfusion machines, refrigeration / freezers, surgical robots and navigation units are all excellent examples.
I spent part of my career, about 15 years, as a hispital biomed, and another 15 years as OEM service engineer working for medical laser companies. The biomed job was nice because of the variety, but it's difficult to become an expert on anything. OEM you become an expert, but miss out on the variety.
As a biomed tech, it's important to know your limitations, and when to call the experts. As an OEM tech, I dreaded working on equipment that had been botched by a biomed who got in over his head. In most cases it would've been cheaper in the long run for the biomed to call in the OEM.
IDK. Maybe you're right: some tech is so advanced that repairablity is impossible.
As far as being politically aware, these individual fringe cases are irrelevant. 99% of this is product design aimed at preventing repair. Even the least repairable devices COULD include some level of modular design to reduce waste. The onus is not on us consumers to hand wave the layman's ignorance of irreprable microscopic tech. It is the responsibility of manyfacturers to justify skyricketing costs subsidized by our insurance & gov't subsidies. We call them private companies, but how private can they really be when they start with a business model designed to bypass consumers & profit from publically funded institutions?
15:45 as a german electrical engineer it took a month to study the regulations and obtain the license just to do standard electrician work inside a hospital!
As a longtime med device rep... I just have to say.. God bless Biomed. Those guys have a tough job, as does everyone in medicine these days.
Thanks Nate! I tell Biomeds to use reps as a resource.
Enjoying the content. Thanks 🙏
Stuff like this NEEDS to be illegal, like YESTERDAY !. The rot needs stripping from the bottom feeding system
Cowboys like this who do not have the full background knowledge the manufacturer should be illegal
@@eelcosterringa1374 How exactly they cowboys ?. People like this know more than manufacture approved 'professionals' on most occasions, who are no more than board swap monkeys on most occasions and know nothing about actually diagnosing and fixing boards.
I’ll bet you are glad to be in Texas , I’m so happy you’re here
Look at the UK comedy show 'Prime Minister' & 'Yes Prime Minister' the ultimate staffers! Still true to this day, whatever country you're in.
You inspire me, I just went and bought a simple adaptor, bought a 10kg CO2 bottle, can refill my Sodastream bottle 22x for 37Euro instead of 22x8=172Euro minus the 50Euro adaptor so i already save >85Euro only for the first refill :). I feel like a winner :) Thanks :)
I have not repaired a lot of things, but I am quite pleased by it when I can. My father has an electric stand-up chair with reclining function. At some point it stopped working. I found that the problem was just a cable break in the remote, a simple fix (even if keeping the twisted cord straightened out while carefully cutting the insulation (didn't have a better tool at hand than a knife) almost gave me a cramp).
Last year the case of my bicycle's front light broke. It was already somewhat cold anyway and I instead drove to work with my car for the winter. Around christmas I bought myself a 3D printer because I wanted one and need more hobbies anyway. The next couple months I learned some 3D modeling (just learning by doing, no courses), and when spring arrived I pushed myself to finish the light case. The end result is far from perfect - I had to wrap it with sticky tape to keep the inner part from wobbling around, but with that bit of tape it now functions again.
There has been other things, but those stand out in my memory. With the bike in particular I considered just buying a replacement, but it really nagged at me that the main bits were all still fine.
Oh, and I've replaced a mouse scroll wheel, a mouse cable, a mouse button (sadly I've stopped using that mouse by now because of... er, I don't remember) and XBox 360 Controller shoulder buttons. Again, I considered buying replacements, but especially with these bits I was quite certain I had the skill to repair it.
@@groundcontrol6876 Hm, I don't think so. But the mouse was in constant use from early 2013/2014 until 2021, and the controller from about 2014 or 2015 until now.
And I spend far too much time using them^^.
Glad to see aviation repair parts pricing isn't the only 'unwanted rear entry' industry.
It'll be odd if us Aussies lead the way in R2R.. because we are such a nanny state. If any electrical/plumbing is broken(or not), it's illegal for us to touch it. (and it's costly, I've seen a $500USD bill for a power outlet to be replaced). And if you want to access the codes (Standards) to sneak in your own repair, or even just to check your electrician/plumber did the job to code, well, you have to pay hundreds of bucks (dollarydoos) to obtain the codes, because our gov. leased monopoly rights on them to a private company for the past 20 years (that agreement has ended.. so now it seems there's merely a duopoly)
I can understand why there is a timer on the bulb, cant be fun being in the middle of a important surgery and the light goes out.
That said, it should ofcours be simple to reset when the bulb is swapped.
I would love to get into medical equipment repair, it sounds super interesting! Need to find out how that works in my country!
If I had to goto a hospital I would want this guy fixing and checking the equipment, not caving to manufacturers.
Thanks Peter!
@@BetterBiomedChannel You're very welcome! I subscribed to your channel too! I like to buy used microscopes and try to fix them up :) Where does one go to buy old microscopes and stuff from hospitals and research labs? Do they have auctions normally or do you need to know someone on the inside?
Better Biomed does not look 42 and has the perfect personality to be having kids, he cares about the world.
I'm an auto tech. People don't even realize a check engine light for a lazy thermostat will cause your GM cars remote start to not function. Seeing this kind of thing left and right. They will start disabling comfort features to pressure the consumer to fix other items. Check engine light comes on, throw some anti-lock brake codes to disable traction control. When that doesn't work, drop the temp gauge to full cold. What a world we live in. Forced to do things since they can't legally require us to do them.
In the semiconductor industry, we replace 10K worth of consumables per tool and the parts come back dirty (not clean room clean) after refurbishing.
This easily costs thousands per day because machines need to purge and recondition to near space vacuum.
Lately I have been coming back to thoughts of going back into biomed and making license free equipment, but I am legally impaired to go through the motions.
Any OEM refurbishing company we have worked with has dropped the ball recently and I believe its such a niche market that we will pay more for increasingly deteriorating services in the future. All thanks to lawyers that only care about themselves and keep using scorched earth tactics.
Louis, you are an ambassador. Not just for the Right-to-Repair community but for the UA-cam community as well. I've been watching you do your thing for about the last 5 years give or take. And I absolutely find the most entertainment when you do these cross channel segments with other content creators. It really shows but there is a community and there is support and friendships to be had and finding like-minded and influential people and collaborating with them is a very awesome and positive thing. I think I enjoyed this video more than I have some of your other ones in a while but I will say that since I started watching you until today you have consistently improved the quality of the content that you bring us. You have never wavered from your convictions. You bring us true and factual content with a level of confidence and knowledge well never coming off as arrogant. Maybe just a little smug but never arrogant. 🤫. You are a resource, an authority, and a role model. Truly an ambassador for the people. 🫡
thanks for this video. An evergreen about the current state of the industry
that argument with a manager can be cut short in a second by saying "do we need to get the hospital's lawyers involved with liability over contaminated equipment?"
Thanks for bringing up the medical device repairs. Its bullshit what some OEMs do. You shouldn't need an OEM certified john doe as the only service person for simple stuff like servicing a PC connected to an equipment, or replacing common shit like power supplies or power buttons.
A friend of mine is a recently-retired opthamologist. He's a hobbyist luthier, and he likes to make ukuleles. He had a piece of equipment that was still working, but it was missing a few screws. When he tried to order them the manufacturer told him he needed to send it in for repair, because replacing the screws was like microsurgery. "Perfect. Microsurgery is what I do every day. Send me the damn screws."
BTW: As I write this I'm waiting for AAA to come replace a battery in my wife's VW. Yesterday I discovered that my OBDII reader doesn't support 2015 cars, and I can't "re-code" the car for the new battery. Replacing an automotive lead-acid battery requires computer inputs to the charging system.
Biomedical Engineering BS MS PhD next door to these guys at Univ of Texas next Door
I was watching Scotty Kilmer on his car repair channel. On the Toyota Prius a new back up screen on car cost eight thousand dollars. It's just a screen like in a cheap tablet. YOu can buy a used sreen for 200 from a car junk yard.
Salvaged parts more and more become having an x percentage of the spare part price
Great interview, Louis. You came across as a natural interviewer. Your lobbying speeches didn't go to complete waste then! 🤪😂
service/repair is about logic and common sense with the understanding of how the parts (in specific area of technology ) works and quickly figure out how things work or suppose to work to figure out where the fault is most likely to be and fix it
Great video Louis. I think it will help some career choices for sure.
Well, now I know how I got a bone infection from surgery. Ruined my life Sure wish that guy would have been at that hospital and argued to properly clean the tools they used
It's nice to know that Congress thinks a 4-day work week is fair for them, but not for their voters.
As a Dr I hate flat rate repair but I can make sure I get my money’s worth out of it
This happens often. Multiple bad parts from multiple devices can be shipped in for flat rate repair. We can save 4-5 devices from 1 bad unit
One reason why this stuff is so expensive is because of standards, regulations and certifications driving the costs up. Somewhere, the risk was identified that an exploding light bulb could harm someone. Then hundreds of man-hours were spent to find a solution, writing documents, reviewing, explaining it to regulators, verifying and validating.
For a lightbulb?
Oh my god, this man most definitely saved lives by fighting to properly sterilize that equipment. To have OEM technicians certify equipment was properly maintained when it OBVIOUSLY WASN'T is not only infuriating, but also incredibly dangerous to patients.
"Staffers are very powerful", and almost all of them are hired from the D.C. area. That's why members of Congress should be required to have their office and staff in their home district and telecommute by default with the rest of Congress. They can go to D.C. for ceremonial purposes but the great majority of their term should be spent with them physically in the district or state that sent them to Congress.
DRM should be forbidden in anything that's not based on actual patentable or copyrightable property.
God bless your work.
Great ad timing
I didn't know about the Keurig, I use a reusable basket and grounds because I like my own choice in fresh ground beans, and I think the cups are wasteful. That's flippin wild.
I went to school for Biomed and left the field after 1 week because of the ridiculous bureaucracy attached to every stage of product development, assembly and sales. the whole industry is bonkers, and not just in the US, but especially here when it comes to price gouging despite lack of quality.
Thankfully most of the skills I acquired translated well into general electronics engineering, but I fully empathize with anyone being scared away from the field. No wonder we have a shortage.
awesome interview awesome guy👌
I modified BIOS in a PC I was building for my wife so it could boot from a NVME drive on a NVME to PCIE adapter (it didn't have M.2 slots or anything like that.) Where there is a will there's a way.
If you mess up your BIOS you can brick your board. Meaning you have to get some special but not that expensive equipment to refresh your BIOS chip. But that in itself is a slippery slope. Either way, it's our risk to take as consumers. I bought it I reserve the right to fix or flop it.
Louis, I know this is completely unrelated, but I recently learned that the BMW subscription thing wasn’t for all cars. Basically they are making the stock model the same as the model with all the features but making it so that if you want those features on the stock that’s theoretically not meant to have them, you need to pay slightly extra. Also it’s not forced as a subscription, you can still pay in full and keep it forever if you would like.
I forgot mostly what was discussed in your original video but I want to know if this changes much.
Also it’s still quite weird to charge money for already-implemented technology, as it’s not like it costs them to turn it on… but I guess it makes sense if it doesn’t make something that was free forced in a subscription/payment. I was also thinking this could help the used market, as if the original owner didn’t get an option you’d want you can just one time pay for it and get it. Without needing to pay a higher price or get a worse deal that has that feature included.
I'm just a few minutes in but I'm already seeing that light as if a private company turned off your car and told you to buy a new one once it hit a certain mileage and said the reason was because "safety." Everyone would scream that it was BS and it was just profiteering. Medical equipment OEMS get away with this because most people don't know about it.
Damit! I forgot to pay my car headlight subscription!
I been doing dishes while listening to this, this is top quality content right here. 10/10
I’m understanding why lab costs are so expensive 😮