The year 2000; a reasoned approach for an acute hospital

Ipswich Hospital (UK) is a large acute hospital of some 850 beds and all the normal specialist departments. There are thirteen operating theatres, an ITU, CMU and a special care baby unit together with X-ray, radiotherapy, pathology etc. So we have a large amount of electro-medical equipment: some 6000 items from over 600 manufacturers. The author considers the year 2000 problem by examining the scale of the problem and what to do about it. He describes what was done at Ipswich and the reasoning behind our actions. The strategy employed at Ipswich is to rely on statements of compliance by manufacturers and where this is not possible to apply a risk assessment methodology. In simple terms, this is where the risk of there being a year 2000 problem is assessed, together with the consequences of a problem.