Few medical equipment service and maintenance companies look after a single customer in a single building. A typical contract base spans hospitals, clinics, care homes, and dental practices, each device with its own service interval. Keeping those dates straight is usually the first job a spreadsheet is given, and for a while it copes well. The MHRA's Managing Medical Devices guidance, written for healthcare organisations, describes what a good device record holds, and it makes a useful yardstick for service firms too, because your records feed theirs. This article looks at where a spreadsheet register strains, and what assets, jobs, and service history look like when they sit together in one system.
The guidance lists what a device record should evidence: a unique identifier where appropriate, purchase and deployment dates, installation details, maintenance and repair schedules, and an end-of-life date, where one is specified. Your customers own that record, so a medical equipment asset register on the service side needs to carry the same details for every device you look after.
We would add the fields an engineer needs on the day: the site, the room or ward, the contract, the last service date, and the next one due. Held against a single asset record, they mean the person booking the visit and the person making it see the same information.
A spreadsheet is a sensible place to start. It is quick to set up and familiar to everyone. The strain appears as the customer list grows, because the register multiplies with it: a file or tab per site, edited by different people, with nothing linking a due date to the visit that fulfils it.
That pattern sits awkwardly with the MHRA guidance, which says records should be kept in one system where possible and, where they are decentralised, should cross-reference each other. It also recommends keeping a record of where each device currently is, which is hard to do when devices are pooled, issued as needed, and moved between departments.
A further point is that the guidance expects records to be protected against changes that would obscure earlier entries. A spreadsheet cell holds one value, so updating a due date overwrites the previous one, and the history goes with it.
Hold each device as one record that carries its service interval, last service date, and contract, then let the completed visit generate the next due date automatically. A single view of what falls due, filtered by site, replaces one spreadsheet per customer.
Intervals are the reason this needs automating. The guidance says planned maintenance should follow the manufacturer's instructions, and it notes that service intervals typically range from one month to two years, depending on the device. A mixed estate therefore has several rhythms running at once. In a spreadsheet, each needs its own formula and someone to keep it current. In a field service system, the interval is set once per device type, and closing the job resets the clock.
Medical equipment service due dates then need to reach the right engineer at the right time. Grouping due jobs by site, so one visit covers everything falling due there, saves return trips, and Solarvista's batch optimising scheduler can sequence a week's visits across sites in one go.
In a connected system, the job is the record. When an engineer completes a visit, the parts fitted, readings taken, and next due date write straight to the asset's history, so medical device service history tracking happens as a by-product of the work. The next engineer opens the asset and sees what the last visit found.
That matters for inspection. The guidance expects complete, accurate records, on paper or electronic, to be available for inspection, internal audits, and investigations. It also says both the organisation and the service provider should record the current version of a device, including upgrades, modifications, and repairs. A history that builds itself from completed jobs is far easier to evidence than one typed up from memory at the depot.
The guidance says service contracts should cover record keeping, response times, and spare-part traceability, among other things, so requirements vary from one customer to the next. Independent medical equipment service provider software needs to flex with them. Adding a field for a particular trust's asset number, or a check for a particular device family, should be a configuration change and not a development project.
That flexibility is what sets medical equipment asset management for service companies apart from general scheduling. Solarvista is both a field service management system and a no-code application platform, so the register, jobs, forms, and history can be shaped around your business by your own team.
If your due dates currently live in a spreadsheet per site, a Solarvista demo is a quick way to see them rebuilt in a single connected view, using our unique 2-in-1 field service management system and no-code application platform.