GE Vivid 9 TEE probe failure?

[cchoukal]

I realize this is a pretty specific ask that only applies to a handful of people here, but I'm at an impasse, and thought I'd see if any of you have had this same issue. Long story short, a year or so ago, we had a couple of our TEE probes fail. When attached to the console, the console would not recognize the probe, rendering it unusable. Our local engineers could not find the problem, but asserted that moisture must have gotten into the "plug" apparatus. GE does not warranty or repair these probes, and two different outside vendors could not repair them or provide any additional diagnostics.

New probes were purchased (after MUCH haranging and finger-pointing), and a new cleaning and storage process was designed so as to limit moisture exposure to the plug and facilitate drying of the probe after sterile processing.

Fast forward to this week, and we again have two probes with this same issue (seemingly), one on our side, and one among the cardiologists.

We don't have great engineering support (you'd think they would take this on and try to help us correct this, but no), so I'm left to muster a team to get to the bottom of this. Besides what I'm doing locally, I just wanted to see if anyone else has encountered this issue (Google turns up nothing), and ask what you did about it.

Thanks in advance,

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[deleted171991]

Haven't seen it with our probe, sorry.

Are you sure it's not some firmware bug in the console? It's kind of strange that the probes keep failing, especially at the same time.

 

[cchoukal]

Haven't seen it with our probe, sorry.

Are you sure it's not some firmware bug in the console? It's kind of strange that the probes keep failing, especially at the same time.

I suppose I can't be 100% sure, but some of the probes DO work with the console, suggesting the console itself is functioning. Whatever analysis/diagnostics have been done on the console have been normal, I'm told.

 

[Robotic Wis-Hipple]

Do the probes work at all? Or does the machine simply never recognize that they are plugged in?

I ask because one of our probes would work but then certain button presses or workflows would make the machine bug out and say no probe was attached. Ended up being the probe despite the appearrance of a software issue.

 

[cchoukal]

When plugged in, the console does not recognize that a probe is plugged in.

 

[Robotic Wis-Hipple]

My sense is that GE's probes have an issue with connection and/or a failure rate much higher than other manufacturers. Of course they're gonna say that it's something you guys are doing. But if any moisture ruins these probes I'd like to know where do they think we use these machines and how do they think we clean them?

 

[drmwvr]

We did have something similar occur that involved the shut down/power down procedure during the prior use of the machine, ie, if it wasn't done in the correct sequence, there would be a boot up problem the next time we tried to use the machine. Once we figured that out it stopped happening.

 

[cchoukal]

We did have something similar occur that involved the shut down/power down procedure during the prior use of the machine, ie, if it wasn't done in the correct sequence, there would be a boot up problem the next time we tried to use the machine. Once we figured that out it stopped happening.

Thanks, did the boot-up problem render the probe unrecognizable, or were you able to correct the problem and use the scope? Our situation did not allow the probe to be used.

 

[drmwvr]

Thanks, did the boot-up problem render the probe unrecognizable, or were you able to correct the problem and use the scope? Our situation did not allow the probe to be used.

No, the problem had to be corrected by the biomed EE's/techs. It did create quite a mess. We'd switch out both the machine and the probe. Honestly, I'm not aware which problem caused what, or which error occurred first, the probe or the machine. Hope that will help.

 

[Robotic Wis-Hipple]

This is why Phillips are the best machines.