After the California Medical Device Right to Repair Act (SB 605) passed through the California Senate Committees on Health and Judiciary in recent weeks without a single opposing vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee chose not to pass the bill on Thursday, May 20.
To U.S. PIRG officials—and many members of the healthcare technology management profession—this is a major disappointment. “Many medical device manufacturers routinely restrict access to essential repair materials, including tools, schematics, access codes, and more,” U.S. PIRG said in a statement. This, in turn, can lead to delays in patient care and higher repair costs, according to the advocacy group.
SB 605, introduced by California Sen. Susan Talamantes Eggman (Bakersfield), would have provided qualified technicians employed by hospitals and independent service organizations with these materials.
CALPIRG’s Right to Repair Advocate Kevin O’Reilly says the Senate Appropriations Committee’s failure to pass this bill puts public health at risk. “The pandemic has made clear the need to allow onsite technicians to fix medical devices as soon as they break,” he adds. “Without [the] Right to Repair, manufacturers’ control on the medical device repair market will continue to delay patient care and drive up the cost.”
O’Reilly continues, “Hospital repair technicians, hospital networks and associations, public health groups, consumer groups, and more all came together to put the needs of patients above manufacturer profits. It’s clear that a heavy lobbying effort by manufacturer groups ultimately convinced leadership to kill the bill. It’s unconscionable that this problem will continue to plague patients through the end of the pandemic and beyond.”
Do you agree or disagree with O’Reilly? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Follow the money. Pretty simple.
Yep, greed politics and power.
I suspect this will continue until the medical community learns to vote with their wallets.
Right to Repair needs to be written into the purchasing contracts and engraved into the desks of the C-suite.
Let’s be honest with ourselves, any entity maintaining a device should be held to the same standards. Level that and we’ll have a fair discussion on right to repair. Some say “follow the money” but fail to note the added burden (which creates cost) the FDA places on OEM’s or the technology advancement brought to your local provider by OEM’s. Next time you are in need of specialty care, go to a 3rd world country for diagnosis or get the most advance medical care available between the boundaries of the US of A.
in no means do I suggest that all service vendors act the same way, but let’s go for real legislation that holds all to the same standards, then take next steps on who can repair and how.
Start with Medical Equipment that is bought and owned by a hospital and who choses to self service with qualified technicians employed by hospital.
My guess it’s the independent third party component that is the political and money influence bill killer.
Hospital’s and their Clinical Engineering groups need to stand up and fight for that right as a single source entity..Nobody cares more about their equipment and the patients they serve than in-house hospital Clinical Engineering.