Banned: Crocs

Incidents in medical facilities caused by static electricity has been known for many years. Remedies include wearing ESD shoes or applying an ESD floor finishes . Other remedies include applying an EPA registered cleaner that also removes and prevents the generation of static electricity or using ESD floor tiles or ESD paint. When buying these products independent test data are important. The manufacturer should be members of the EOS, ISSA organizations. One such site is Static Solutions who manufactures 4 types of floor finish including the ZERO VOC ESD floor finish. www.staticsolutions.com. When using Crocs and applying the ESD floor finish should solve, eliminate or reduce these static electricity incidents.

Len Cohen

It worries me that so many of the healthcare professionals are unaware of the dangers static electricity poses to everyday tasks carried out in the hospital.
I've been in the position where test data has been corrupted because of a static electricity event.I was unaware of why there was a failure. The test facilitator had no idea and just did the test again until he got results that looked 'normal'. I did some research and found that these static electricity events are very normal! Did you know that there have even been space missions that have blown up because of these events?

Doctors and healthcare professionals really should look more into ways to make hospitals more safe from the dangers of ESD.

Medical devices certified for use in either the United States (per FDA rules) or in the European Union (typically "CE" marked) are required to meet a series of strict regulatory standards, including immunity to ESD. The applicable standard varies based on location (US vs. EU), type of device (equipment vs. implantable vs. in-vitro), but for medical equipment, generally the IEC 60601-1-2 standard is used. Protection is at least 6000V of direct discharge and 8000V of air discharge.

So we shouldn't have ESD problems with medical equipment, right? A few caveats:
1. This standard only came into general use around 2001, so older equipment may be susceptible.
2. Sensitive inputs (such as ECG leads) are often exempt from ESD testing.
3. ESD events greater than 8000V are common in certain environments, especially when humidity is low.
4. Certain devices (such as a hyfrecator) intentionally create electrical signals that can behave like ESD events.

I agree with Ms. Winstone that education/awareness is key. Your first line of defense should be the biomedical technicians that service the equipment: they should be able to identify these problems, then repair, replace or protect any device found to be susceptible.

The website advertised by Mr. Cohen indeed offers devices for diagnosing ESD problems, as well as methods for protecting devices. However, IMHO, the best policy is to use equipment that is designed to be immune to ESD events, rather than rely on after-the-fact (and often cumbersome and expensive) ESD-limiting measures.

However, in the real world, sometimes a $10 gallon of floor wax is a better solution than a $10,000 EEG! (If your maintenance staff will remember to use that special, expensive wax every single week...)

I work as a Respiratory Therapist in USA. I wear crocs and my machines function well. We did experience static from washable nylon PPE gowns, which are now removed, still no equipment malfuntion.

Coming in late with comments for others who may read this:

Faith, what you need to understand is that the damage you cause to these machines with ESD may not cause them to fail immediately, or for weeks, or months. And it may not ever cause it to fail. ESD is a hidden and insidious problem which NEVER (not ever) manifests itself as a broken piece of equipment at the time of the event. Anyone else reading this who want to use Faith's argument to justify wearing crocs around sensitive electronic equipment, DON'T. It's also rather akin to the "I've driven drunk before and never crashed" argument.

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Best Regards
Peter

cock suckers

fuk u allll !!

big emma

josh loves men

steve has a little cock

i wanna fuk u where u from ??

camel toe

sumo

josh fingers his asshole with a blunt pencil and emma likes the blood with her tongue.

I just bought a croc to see what all the buzz was about, and it really is incredibly comfortable, but I would still never where these outside of the home.

One problem at home, though, is when I walk around on the carpet (even just from one room to another) it seems to build up an enormous amount of static electricity. I just went to put my iphone in the cradle and I pretty much saw a bolt of lighting come shooting out of the bottom of my iphone down to the charging dock...
And everytime I touch the fridge door or touch a lightswitch, I'm getting shot with a rod of lightning...