Intermittent Shutdowns in Mission-Critical Medical Equipment

The Challenge

A healthcare organization engaged ELEXANA to investigate intermittent shutdowns affecting a mission-critical medical system.

The equipment had previously operated reliably. Following a facility electrical event, unexplained shutdowns began occurring intermittently. Conventional troubleshooting had not identified a definitive cause, and the sporadic nature of the failures made the problem particularly difficult to reproduce.

Because the system was operating within an active healthcare environment, the investigation also required careful coordination to avoid disrupting clinical operations.

ELEXANA’s Approach

ELEXANA approached the problem as a system-level electromagnetic integrity investigation rather than assuming that the malfunction originated within the affected equipment itself.

Measurements and engineering analysis were performed across the equipment, its power infrastructure, grounding and bonding paths, surrounding structural systems, and electromagnetic environment.

The investigation identified multiple abnormal electrical and electromagnetic conditions that were not apparent through conventional equipment troubleshooting.

Rather than relying upon a single measurement or hypothesis, ELEXANA used independent measurement methods and repeated testing to distinguish persistent conditions from transient or operating-state-dependent phenomena.

This process progressively narrowed the mechanisms capable of contributing to the intermittent failures.

Why the Investigation Was Different

Intermittent electronic failures are frequently treated as isolated equipment problems. In complex facilities, however, equipment operates as part of a much larger electromagnetic system.

Power distribution, grounding and bonding, structural conductive paths, common-mode currents, electromagnetic coupling, and nearby electronic systems can interact in ways that are difficult to identify through conventional troubleshooting.

ELEXANA’s investigation therefore examined the environment surrounding the equipment as part of the system itself.

Result

The investigation identified previously undocumented electrical and electromagnetic conditions capable of affecting reliable system operation and provided the client with an engineering basis for corrective action and verification testing.

The findings transformed an intermittent and difficult-to-reproduce equipment problem into a defined engineering problem that could be systematically addressed.

Where troubleshooting ends, our work begins.

When electrical and electronic systems fail without an obvious cause, ELEXANA identifies the root cause through engineering investigation, measurement, and analysis.