Health Devices System offers you a comprehensive portfolio of Web resources and online tools, customized consultation services, and unique reports to help you ensure patient safety and make informed healthcare technology decisions. Through the System’s information products and services—as well as through direct, personal communication with ECRI Institute’s experts—you’ll get answers to your technology management questions.

The information we provide is developed through ECRI Institute’s independent research, investigations, and its rigorous laboratory testing. We maintain a full-time, multidisciplinary staff dedicated to evaluating and gathering information about healthcare technologies, analyzing data and literature using sound technical judgment, and distributing our findings and recommendations to member healthcare professionals.

Components of the Health Devices System

• Online Services. The membership program provides evaluations, guidance articles, hazard and user experience reports, talk-to-the-specialist articles, and slide shows, as well as other useful tools for managing healthcare technology. Access to online resources is available to all staff within a member facility.
• Health Devices Journal. Health Devices is a monthly journal featuring independent, comparative evaluations of medical devices and systems, as well as in-depth technology guidance. The journal is available in both print and electronic formats.  
• Problem Reporting Services. Members who are experiencing problems with a medical device can report the problems to ECRI Institute. We investigate and respond with our findings.
• Devices Alerts. Health Devices Alerts is a Web-based information service that informs you about—and helps you respond to—recalls, hazards, product safety alerts, and reported problems involving medical devices.
• Consultation Services. All employees of member hospitals can contact in-house experts for advice on healthcare technology topics. Consultation services range from regulatory analyses to database searches.
  

Additional Benefits

• Alerts Tracker™—an optional service available exclusively to member hospitals—is a powerful online system that automates the hazard and recall management process.
• Audio Conferences—Periodically throughout the year, ECRI Institute conducts interactive audio conferences on topics of interest to the healthcare community. Registration for an audio conference allows multiple people employed at your facility to participate in the event.
• Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System™—Health Devices System publications and databases are coordinated with the Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS™), an international, controlled vocabulary for medical devices that was created and is maintained by ECRI Institute. Member healthcare facilities can license the use of UMDNS.

Want to upgrade to the Gold standard?
The Health Devices (HD) Gold program offers three ECRI Institute services to select, use, maintain, and manage healthcare technologies. This premier suite of services includes: the Health Devices System, the Healthcare Product Comparison System, and the Health Devices International Sourcebase.

How Can We Help Your Organization?
Whether you need the services described above, or have other challenges, our experts are here to help.  For more info, please send your request to communications@ecri.org.