Introducing 24×7 + The Bearded Biomed: Sounding Off on Biomed’s Biggest Headlines

Keri Stephens:

Welcome back to the MEDQOR Podcast Network, where we cover insights, reporting and analysis on MedTech Innovation across all of healthcare. I’m Keri Stephens, chief editor of 24×7 Magazine. 24×7 has been on the forefront of the healthcare technology management field for more than 25 years. In today’s episode, I am joined by the Bearded Biomed, AKA Chace Torres, as we kick off a recurring partnership to discuss the latest news in the HTM and biomed industry.

Keri Stephens:

Today’s episode touches on the need to increase awareness and training in the biomed field, cybersecurity concerns and the recent developments in the right to repair. Hi, welcome to the premier episode of the 24×7 featuring the Bearded Biomed podcast, the Bearded Biomed, AKA Chase Torres. And yeah, we’re just here to talk about all things biomed and Chace. My first question is just tell me about yourself.

Chace Torres:

Well, I’ve been in the field approximately 13 years, started in the U.S military where I learned to be a biomed. Went to Shepherd Air Force Base back when the schoolhouse wasn’t based at San Antonio. From there, I was stationed at Fort Hood for my entire eight year career. I went on two deployments, did a tour in Afghanistan and a tour in Africa for the Ebola breakout.

Keri Stephens:

That’s crazy.

Chace Torres:

Yeah. The logistics weren’t all there, but we made things happen, I guess. From there pretty much I came back to Hood. I was at the point to where I made the decision do I want to make this a career in the military or do I want to take my journey into the civilian world? And pretty much I was left with either being shipped out to Germany to work at the Army Depot, where basically I would be working on just pallets of the same equipment every day, like an assembly line.

Chace Torres:

And that didn’t sound enticing to me. So I decided to go ahead and exit the military, and apply to about 30 different positions in the Texas area, because I’m from Texas, I wanted to stay in Texas. Put one position in for Oklahoma City and that’s the one that ended up hitting. And I’ve been with the same company ever since. And since then I’ve relocated to the DFW area and I’ve been servicing this area and going on adventures [inaudible 00:03:12] biomed world for the past four or five years. That’s pretty much my biomed journey.

Keri Stephens:

Well I’m sure 2020 wasn’t a major adventure in and of itself with everything going on. I want to hear about that.

Chace Torres:

Yeah, COVID’s been a change agent for the field in general, in regards to how we deal with COVID patients. I mean, obviously we have to be aware going into patient rooms, which I’ve done more than probably the average person thinks that a biomed would go into a COVID patient room, but it’s like a normalcy now. So it’s just donning proper PPE, that kind of thing. Dealing with the logistics of PMing and servicing states and equipment for hospitals, such as ventilators.

Chace Torres:

Quick little story that comes to mind is one of the rural hospitals I take care of, they obviously were in need of a lot more ventilators than what they had. The state had the program going to where they were, shipping out ventilators left and right all across just everywhere to get these ventilators that are in need. I believe they got about, I want to say five or six completely boxed up.

Chace Torres:

I get there, I’m literally assembling them, getting ready to start putting my test equipment together to verify that they’re ready to go. And literally I have the respiratory director walk in and tell, “Yeah, the state said we got to send them all back.”

Keri Stephens:

Wow.

Chace Torres:

And these were essentially about to be put on patients because they needed them, so I feel the… Like I said, COVID has taught us a lot. I would say medical device management from the state level hasn’t exactly been what I would call optimal from what I’ve came across. But that may not be the case everywhere else, but that’s just one thing that sticks out in my mind.

Keri Stephens:

That’s a lot to deal with, especially the patient care implications of that would be these patients needed the ventilators to breathe and to possibly live, and I can’t imagine going through that.

Chace Torres:

Well, it’s navigating COVID patients with the device management is in and of itself a little bit more wishy washy. I had a hospital bed that the same hospital needed me to look at. So I drive hours out there and come to find out that they have a COVID patient hooked up on ventilator, completely incoherent, not able to do anything in this bed that I need to repair. And of course I can’t do anything to the bed because there’s a patient in it.

Chace Torres:

Knowing the issue, I needed to actually get in there and start taking things apart. That’s one of my frustrations. And one of the things I joke about on my podcast is one of my favorite things I notice is whenever I have to fix something, for some reason, nurses don’t care to take it off of the patient and remove it from the floor. You’d be surprised how often that happens.

Keri Stephens:

What are some of the other frustrating things that you deal with on a daily basis? I mean you can vent, this is a very [inaudible 00:07:00].

Chace Torres:

Well, that’s also why I made the podcast. It was my therapy. Now, I would say one of the biggest things that I have to deal with is… I would say things that bother me right now are staffing because we don’t have the numbers needed. We’re always, turnover in the biomed field is almost nostalgic at this point. Usually if you last more than a year, you’re more likely to stay within that company or hospital’s system you’re in, but the turnover rate is commonplace nowadays. So it’s hard to retain technicians.

Keri Stephens:

Why [crosstalk 00:07:49]?

Chace Torres:

Well, we’re already a niche profession to begin with. And I think we only got about 9200 or 9300 biomeds in the U.S total today. And obviously with the more niche profession, that’s also going to yield to more competition. If there’s a better deal somewhere else when it comes to pay, and of course biomeds go get your pay. This also helps with filling out the 24×7 survey when it comes to pay.

Chace Torres:

So we know exactly if we are all getting paid fair rates. And then, it can always stem back to a company culture and everything. There’s just a lot of dynamics, but I think a big thing is just competition just because it’s always going to be that way. At least until the field itself grows a lot larger to establish where you want to stay. Unfortunately, the company I’m with, I have really no calls with it all. I love it. So I was fortunate in that.

Keri Stephens:

Well, one of the things, especially, I’m glad you mentioned our salary survey, but a lot of people are so close to retirement age too. I know that’s something that people are constantly bringing up, that people are five, always usually less than 10 years from retirement. So it’s like these people are leaving the field, that’s already a niche field, but where is the talent coming in? And I know that’s been a huge problem for the industry and something we write about a lot.

Chace Torres:

Yes. Actually I have an episode going into this even further. I believe it’s episode four, it’s the old and the new. If you look at the statistics, roughly 75% of our field is over 49 years of age. The minority and also female numbers attached to the biomed field are also way drastically lower than what anyone should find acceptable. Like I said, I would say a lot of our field is probably if not within that 49 or older range, probably around because I’m about to be 32 and I’ve been in the field for over a decade.

Chace Torres:

So there’s not an influx of new technicians coming into the fray, they’re… I mean we have luckily entities such as Amy trying to push forth, going into high schools, doing HTM [inaudible 00:10:33] box, doing outreach, trying to get the numbers. Even in the military, I have contacts that are high up and they have eyes on what these numbers are and it’s not meeting.

Chace Torres:

Even the lot of the higher reps in these very established positions in our biomed field that’s in the military they’re leaving too. The numbers are not matching up with the demand that’s incoming. I read another stat, it was by 2028 we need an additional 5,000 more biomeds, which is more than half of what we have right now in less than six years.

Keri Stephens:

That’s scary.

Chace Torres:

It’s staggering. And again, it’s me and David Braeutigam were speaking about this too in that, one of the talking points or I guess excuses made are, “Well, there’s not enough biomed schools to go around.” Well, the biomed schools are going to be met based on demand. If there’s not a supply, why is there going to be a demand of schools? Now, luckily we do have College of Biomedical Equipment Technology.

Chace Torres:

We have David’s program down in Collins College in North DFW. We have slowly more colleges starting to provide biomed programs. We have of course the U.S military. And you can go to the Triforce School down in San Antonio, which being military trained, I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to be a step above that because of the resources. I think personally the level of a military trained biomed is set up more for success just because of those resources, but either here nor there.

Keri Stephens:

Right. Well, and like you said, I know Amy’s trying to do a lot with their apprenticeship program and all that. I think that’s great. But yeah, again, more has to be done when you think of how many new people have to come into the field because… And I know a lot of times people don’t know about the profession. I think that’s one of the biggest issues too. A lot of times when I tell people, my magazine is 24×7, it for HTM Biomed, they ask what that is. They’ve never heard of it. And I don’t know. Can you talk about that a little bit, maybe the lack of awareness of the profession.

Chace Torres:

So one of the biggest reasons I decided to make the podcast is for awareness.

Keri Stephens:

Good.

Chace Torres:

Before I was even looking to do anything, if you go… Really we don’t have a social media presence to begin with when it comes… Or media presence in general, besides yourself and technician that are doing outreach through magazine and publishing and things of that nature. But we have the Better Biomed on YouTube and you know, he’s been going for a while now, but we didn’t have anything in the podcast space. So hence where, I jumped into it.

Keri Stephens:

What you’re doing and now what we’re doing. Yeah. I think it’s great. I think what you’re doing is awesome and I’m excited for this, just hopefully-

Chace Torres:

It’s a different level of interaction.

Keri Stephens:

Yeah.

Chace Torres:

The space of technology is morphed to the point where, everybody wants the next thing. Everybody wants to digest something quick. And I feel like podcast was a good way to provide that. In regards to no one knowing that we exist, this is one of my greatest frustrations. I got tired of explaining to everybody whenever I’m introduced to someone or I’m meeting someone first for the first time, “What do you do?”

Chace Torres:

“Oh yeah. I guess that job makes sense to exist.” Well, we’re a backbone, critical component of medical care. And most of the time, even medical professionals themselves, they’re like sometimes I’ve came across once. They don’t even really understand what a biomed is and you’re in their medical profession.

Chace Torres:

So we need to do a better job at marketing outreach, social media interaction. Like I said, which is why the podcast was born. And obviously it’s great to have 24×7 getting into that space as well, because it’s not even about competition for me. It’s honestly just about expanding the reach and finding that next generation to inspire them to want to become biomeds.

Keri Stephens:

Well, we need that next generation, because again, it’s like people go to the hospitals and they just assume that their medical equipment is going to work. There’s not, “Oh, is this infusion pump going to fail?” You don’t even think of those things. It’s just assume that your medical equipment will operate as it’s supposed to. But that is thanks to the biomeds such as you who are making sure that it does, but people just don’t think about that. I think that’s a lot of the problem too.

Chace Torres:

Yeah. And I mean, repairing equipment is a vital component of what we do, but honestly, the bread and butter of the biomed field is, preventive maintenance inspections. Doing the Ps and the Qs, the quality checks, the calibration verifications to ensure that these medical devices are operating according to those manufacture specifications, obviously [crosstalk 00:16:13]. Right.

Chace Torres:

By us doing the job and doing those inspections, we’re ensuring that we’re trying to keep your equipment optimal as possible. So we don’t have to rely on always having to repair something, which inevitably is going to happen anyway, either by patients or staff breaking the equipment or just faulty equipment to begin with.

Keri Stephens:

Well, yeah. And especially with medical devices being such a easy entry point for hackers, the biomeds are vitals to preventing that from happening. I know I wrote an article not too long ago about the first medical device related cyber attack resulting in death. There’s a lawsuit going on, a little girl…

Keri Stephens:

I’m sure you’re aware of this, but a woman gave birth at a hospital that had just had a cyber attack and she wasn’t notified of that. So she was induced, had a baby. And I guess some of the monitoring, the fetal monitoring equipment was down because of the cyber attack. And she ended up having a baby that should have come via C section and the baby had brain damage and ended up passing away. And now there’s a lawsuit going on about this possibly, who that fault for this. So it’s interesting.

Chace Torres:

The space is cyber security and with medical devices is becoming more and more needed to be understood. There is a component between that shared space of IT and biomed. And of course, if any biomed’s out there, would be asked a lot of them would say, “We either don’t speak to IT, or we’re not on the best of terms.” But in relation we have to understand that biomed and IT are two different edges of a coin. I mean, IT, they’re mainly focused on non-medical devices. They don’t get trained on these things. That’s where the biomed comes in.

Chace Torres:

Cyberware attacks have become evermore prevalent. I think we’ve had several within just the past few months. I think you wrote about one of, is that the one with Illinois?

Keri Stephens:

Yes.

Chace Torres:

Okay. It’s not going away. It’s only going to continue to ramp up. Even most medical facilities that I take care of, cyber security isn’t on the forefront of their minds. Now obviously you have to… A lot of their, some of the equipment I take care of also is so out of date, which is also another risk because, it’s a much more accessible to hacking. Two, they’re not even at the point of getting firmware updates anymore. So there is risk mitigation that must be considered as well, because a lot of this outdated equipment is just more accessible and has a red sign saying, “Hey, hack me. I’m available.”

Keri Stephens:

Right. Absolutely. And I know we actually just did a round table that came out today about cybersecurity with some of the biggest leaders in the industry with it. And they were talking about the passive security monitoring tools as being really helpful, and the zero trust and all of that. But yeah. What is cybersecurity at your facility like? How are y’all really trying to prevent these attacks from happening?

Chace Torres:

Well, I am of a third party to provider. So while we do offer cybersecurity, we have a partnership with another company that their sole purpose is providing medical device cybersecurity. A lot of facilities either facilitate this through their IT department, or some of them don’t even worry about it at all, which is again-

Keri Stephens:

Scary.

Chace Torres:

… a red flag. Now, if you go into the major hospital systems like Baylor and Scott White, they have this in place. This is a consideration. So I would imagine most larger hospital systems, the ones that are part of medical system networks, they’re going to have this at least aware of the situation. And cybersecurity still, I would believe from medical device industry is still in its adolescence.

Chace Torres:

It’s something that’s starting to be talked more and more, but it’s not something that’s just common, all share everybody where it’s like a bread of butter standard of what everybody’s expecting the biomed to do. So this also pins over to the biomed needing to get ahead of that bell curve in regards to… Because we’re constantly seeking out further education to begin with. It’s just another facet of the job. So going out and possibly getting network, security, the A+ and plus S+ certifications just to at least able to navigate that infrastructure is only going to be beneficial to the biomed to begin with.

Keri Stephens:

Absolutely. It’s just crazy to think how medical devices are so, I’m not going to say easily hacked, but vulnerable to these attacks. And I don’t think patients realize that.

Chace Torres:

There’s a lot that I don’t think the patient for general society understands of the complexities in medical care to begin with. Even people, the biomed itself, there’s a lot about nursing and what doctors do on day in day out that we don’t understand, there’s… And it’s vice versa. A lot of medical staff that we see day in day out, they don’t understand the intricacies of biomed service.

Chace Torres:

So if you have people that are around these medical professionals to begin with, and we don’t understand the complexities of each other’s job, how can we expect the patient to understand what the threats, what the risks are, especially when it comes to something like cybersecurity? It’s other worldly almost to this point.

Keri Stephens:

Very true. And I also wanted to ask, what are of misconceptions about biomed that you want to clear up some more?

Chace Torres:

One that comes to mind, which is a thought on my side would be what’s involved with the right to repair movement? This has been an ongoing thing to begin with fighting against OEMs, their lobbyists, the politicians making obscene statements. If the OEM was to provide service parts, availability, training to us biomeds that aren’t OEM affiliated, then the patient is at risk, the patient is at danger.

Chace Torres:

Episode seven, coming out this week, and I am going to deep dive into this. But for those that make that argument most of the time, when we have to rely on the manufacturer to provide parts or to provide dispatching a technician out, that equipment has been down, that equipment remains to be it down. And you’re already increasing that lead time, not to mention it’s usually an exorbitant amount of money to dispatch technician, because guess what?

Chace Torres:

They are understaffed as well along with us non OEM biomeds. So usually it involves flying out from a different side of the country just to get out to wherever you may be. And usually this is somewhere that doesn’t have OEM contracts. And if you do, you still have to ship the unit out anyway. So this is a complete monopoly almost to the point to where the ball is 95% in their court.

Chace Torres:

They have such a stranglehold on the medical device industry in regards to non-scheduled services that it’s one of the most frustrating things in the world for a biomed to sit there, look at their medical facility that you’re taking care of and tell them, “I absolutely have no ability to fix this unit. Not because I don’t want to, but because my hands are tied. They will not sell us parts, you have to send this in. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do.”

Chace Torres:

Now, being my view, when you tell someone that they’re going to lose faith, they’re going to lose trust in you as their biomed, because that’s why they have you on the payroll. That’s why they pay for your services to fix their problem, not to concern them with telling them why something can’t be.

Chace Torres:

So that’s already hindering our relationships with our medical facilities. Secondly, they don’t have… With COVID especially, hospitals are already struggling, there’s been multitudes of closures all over the U.S. Several of my hospitals, I’ve taken care of, have either just closed down completely. And that I go out there one day to check them they’re not there, have filed for bankruptcy.

Chace Torres:

And I will tell you a service call to a manufacturer to either dispatch a technician or to send in something for an assessment fee, part, shipping, repair, thousands of dollars. It’s literally frustrating for biomeds in general, to not even have the availability to get those parts. And I have read constantly or have listened to these talking heads speaking to the point of, if we make these parts accessible, then patients are put at more at risk. My argument to that is, we are working on life saving devices and patient care devices day in and day out that aren’t under your scope OEM, and guess what? Patients are safe.

Keri Stephens:

I’m sure I can assume that we will have some OEMs listening to this. And is there anything else you want to tell them?

Chace Torres:

I simply would say, just if the point of contention seriously, is that it’s patients safety, then why not offer us HTM professionals training on your medical devices? Because the equipment that is listed as proprietary, some of it you won’t even offer training to us because at the end of the day, it’s about money. And if you are making that available for other services to have that training, to service your equipment, which is your argument for being qualified in the first place to even service it, then where’s the compromise?

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. Well, I think this is good for today. I’m excited to keep this conversation going. And I know Chace and I have aspirations to get a lot of some, the biggest names in biomed on this podcast where we can talk to them about, what they think about these, the big issues that are keeping people up at night, like right to repair and cybersecurity.

Chace Torres:

It kept me up last night making the episode [inaudible 00:28:26].

Keri Stephens:

Yeah. And that’s what everyone in our salary survey. So make sure everyone reads our salary survey. It’s coming out in late January. But I know people are constantly saying that we are, that that is what’s keeping them up at night. Thanks so much for talking to us today. If listeners want to hear more of Chace, where can they find you?

Chace Torres:

So of course you can listen to the Bearded Biomed on my weekly episodes. I’m available through pretty much every platform, Spotify, Stitcher, Apple, Google, Facebook even has podcasting these days. You can go directly to my website, just Google Bearded Biomed, and it’ll take you there.

Chace Torres:

I’m also available on, we have a Bearded Biomed Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, even a TikTok.

Keri Stephens:

Everywhere.

Chace Torres:

I’m here. So if you have any questions or comments about the show, please reach out to you to either Keri or myself on the Bearded Biomed on social media. And yeah, it’s been a pleasure. I’m excited for 24×7 actually getting into the podcast space. This is awesome. And it’s really been a pleasure being on. I had fun today.

Keri Stephens:

I did too. All right. Thank you. Bye everyone.

Chace Torres:

Take care.