We are all deep in the technology age where, for many homes and businesses, power outages are more than a mere inconvenience. For healthcare, they are mission-critical. In the case of hospitals, critical care units, assisted living facilities, and nursing homes, power is an absolute ‘must have’. It’s a matter of survivability for patients and residents entrusting their facility’s level of care is failure proof and storm proof.
The world is not short on catastrophic activities that can and do affect generator operations. New weather patterns have caused unpredictable year-round storms spawning thunder, lighting, tornados, unprecedented flooding and more, driving demand for power up and the need for emergency backup power even higher. Now add an ongoing pandemic furthering the demand for operational healthcare facilities.
The power systems industry agrees that today’s high-tech generators are largely 90% successful when there’s an outage even with routine generator exercises and maintenance. Yet, for hospitals and medical facilities, 90% isn’t going to cut it. According to Michael Wu in Utility Dive, healthcare facilities need to test their generators to ensure their units are at-the-ready. And for some states it’s required to test their generators. However, in a new age of high intensity weather, in addition to a COVID era where people are being too overworked and understaffed, the need for a system to help monitor critical generator conditions and notify the right people when the machine is shutdown is more important than ever.
Adding a remote monitoring system significantly increases that reliability and minimizes downtime. Remotely monitoring generators will track operability, engine battery voltage, run-time tracking, and excessive run-time alerts. Most importantly, errors and shutdown alarms. These units send push notifications to team members responsible for maintaining emergency power backup operations. So even if no one is physically present at the generator, it’s being monitored 24/7.
Any generator failures can cost hospitals, emergency centers, and nursing homes not just budgets but lives. If there’s anything 2020 has taught us, it’s further proof to expect the unexpected. Catastrophes will happen, and we know from stories from the field that generators may fail even with proper maintenance and testing. Active monitoring offers proactive security, confidence in your mission-critical operations in a crisis, and crucial insurance in continued service.
Call your dealer today to discuss your business’s critical needs and find out how the Power Telematics PT Series of monitoring products are crucial to ensure you don’t lose money and business due to faulty standby generator applications. Our Power Telematics monitoring products are simple to install, affordable, universal for all generators, and utilize the Power Link platform. And all PT Series monitoring products come with our lifetime warranty.