Reliability Engineering, Biomedical Equipment Technician, and Clinical Engineering

I have started a discussion on the Asset Management Healthcare Linkedin Group.  The purpose is to generate thought toward what it would really take to show data on which maintenance procedures are effective for maintaining safety and operational specifications and which are not. I do not mean for one work center, one hospital, or one hospital system but for several hospitals across the U.S.  If possible, beyond that.  And as always, the patients safety and health is primary.


Do you believe such an effort could be accomplished ?


On a personal note, back in the day, there was a time you could call an Original Equipment Manufacturer, OEM, and talk about field/shop procedures.  I remember calling them and asking about something in their service manual.  The OEM engineer or technician would talk to me.  Sometimes they would say, we don't do that anymore or a change was on the way down to us.  We would modify our protocols based on those discussions. Whatever happened to that?