Preventive Maintenance
Structured PPM programmes that keep critical medical equipment running — before failure, not after.
Reactive maintenance is not a maintenance strategy. It is a clinical risk management failure waiting to happen.
Jos•Hansen's preventive maintenance programmes (PPM) cover all major medical equipment categories — radiotherapy linear accelerators, CT and MRI systems, patient monitors, ICU ventilators, laboratory analysers, theatre tables and CSSD sterilisation equipment — across East and Southern Africa. Every programme is built to the OEM's own service specification, adapted to African operating conditions: high equipment utilisation, variable grid power, tropical humidity and the longer parts lead times that make unplanned failure disproportionately disruptive. Our biomedical engineers are manufacturer-trained for Accuray (CyberKnife/Radixact), Siare Engineering (SIARETRON ventilators), Mindray (patient monitors), HORIBA Medical (haematology analysers), Leica Biosystems (histology systems) and the full range of GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers and Philips medical platforms. Scheduled maintenance visits include safety testing, calibration, lubrication, component inspection, performance verification and full documented service reports — the record trail required for hospital accreditation and regulatory compliance.
OEM-specification maintenance across all equipment categories
Every PPM visit follows the original manufacturer's service checklist — the same procedure the OEM's own engineers would perform. For radiotherapy equipment (Accuray, Elekta), this means full dosimetric output verification, safety interlock testing and mechanical calibration. For ICU ventilators (Siare Engineering SIARETRON), flow sensor calibration, battery capacity testing and circuit integrity verification. For laboratory analysers (HORIBA Medical, Leica Biosystems), reagent pathway inspection, photometric calibration and carry-over testing. The specification never changes to fit a shorter visit.
Documented compliance for accreditation
Every PPM visit produces a formal service report: equipment ID, date, engineer name and qualification, work performed, calibration results, any defects found and actions taken — signed and dated. These records are provided in formats accepted by the Kenya Healthcare Regulatory Authority (KHRA), Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority (TFDA), Uganda National Drug Authority (UNDAF) and international accreditation bodies including JCI and ISO 15189. Hospitals under accreditation audit can produce the complete maintenance history for any piece of equipment within minutes.
24–48 hour emergency callout across East Africa
When equipment fails outside a scheduled maintenance visit, the PPM contract covers emergency response. Jos•Hansen engineers are deployed across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and beyond — with a target on-site response time of 24–48 hours for critical clinical equipment. Parts for the most common failure modes are held in local inventory, enabling same-visit repair in the majority of callouts rather than a two-stage visit model that leaves equipment down for weeks.
The African equipment failure crisis — and why reactive servicing makes it worse.
Studies of medical equipment in sub-Saharan African hospitals consistently find that 40–70% of equipment is non-functional at any given time — not due to terminal failure, but due to lack of maintenance, calibration and parts. A ventilator that has not had its flow sensor calibrated in three years does not fail visibly — it delivers inaccurate tidal volumes silently. A chemistry analyser that has not had its optics cleaned returns systematically biased results that clinicians trust because the machine has no alarm. A radiotherapy linear accelerator that has not had its output verified may be delivering doses outside the planned range — visible only in treatment outcome statistics, not in real time. Preventive maintenance does not simply reduce breakdown rates — it prevents the invisible performance degradation that causes patient harm without triggering an equipment alarm.
Manufacturer-certified engineers — what certification actually means.
There are biomedical engineers, and there are manufacturer-certified biomedical engineers. The difference matters clinically. A certified Accuray field service engineer for CyberKnife/Radixact has completed Accuray's own training curriculum, passed Accuray's technical assessments and is authorised to perform the calibrations and software procedures that are restricted to certified engineers. An uncertified engineer can replace visible components — they cannot certify dosimetric output, reconfigure beam delivery parameters or perform the software-level safety system tests that confirm the machine is safe to treat. Jos•Hansen engineers hold manufacturer certifications for all major platforms we support — Accuray, Siare Engineering, Mindray, HORIBA Medical and Leica Biosystems. Certification is renewed at each manufacturer's required interval.
PPM programmes reduce total cost of ownership, not just downtime.
The business case for PPM is direct: a ventilator replaced because a bearing failure caused a motor failure that caused a controller failure that was never repaired costs USD 25,000–40,000. The same ventilator maintained on a PPM programme costs USD 800–1,500 per year to service, with bearing replacement as a scheduled maintenance item at USD 120. Equipment that is regularly cleaned, calibrated and inspected also retains residual value for trade-in — relevant for health systems planning equipment replacement cycles. A well-maintained CSSD autoclave that passes the BS EN 13060 performance verification test every six months can be safely operated for 15+ years. An unmaintained autoclave that has never been tested may be delivering incomplete sterilisation cycles without generating a failed-cycle alarm — creating infection control risk that no finance department can afford when it materialises.
Technical specifications.
Equipment categories
Radiotherapy · ICU · laboratory · theatre · CSSD · imaging
Certifications
Accuray · Siare Engineering · Mindray · HORIBA Medical · Leica Biosystems
Visit frequency
OEM-specified intervals — typically quarterly, biannual or annual by category
Service report
Formal signed report per visit — KHRA / TFDA / JCI / ISO 15189 compliant
Emergency response
24–48 hours on-site across Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda
Coverage geography
East Africa · Southern Africa
Of medical equipment in sub-Saharan African hospitals non-functional at any given time — primarily due to lack of preventive maintenance, not terminal failure
Reduction in unplanned equipment breakdown rates achieved through structured PPM programmes — measured across Jos•Hansen's East Africa service portfolio
Emergency callout response target for critical clinical equipment under active PPM contracts across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda
Why Preventive.
60% fewer breakdowns
Structured PPM reduces unplanned breakdown rates by up to 60% — measured across our East Africa service portfolio versus comparator sites on reactive servicing only.
Manufacturer-certified engineers
Accuray-, Siare-, Mindray-, HORIBA- and Leica-certified engineers performing maintenance to OEM specification — preserving warranty and regulatory compliance.
Full compliance documentation
Formal service reports per visit in formats accepted by KHRA, TFDA and JCI — complete maintenance records for hospital accreditation audit.
24–48hr emergency callout
On-site emergency response within 24–48 hours across East Africa — critical equipment failure addressed before the clinical impact becomes irreversible.
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