The (not so) Hidden Cost of Equipment Downtime in Hospitals

Billions Lost Every Year

Research shows that the average U.S. hospital loses $3.2 million annually due to medical equipment downtime. Multiply that across the roughly 6,000 acute care hospitals in the country, and the collective impact is staggering—$20–$30 billion per year in lost revenue, rescheduled procedures, and operational disruption.

When imaging systems, ventilators, infusion pumps, or even EHR terminals go offline, the financial cost per minute can be jaw-dropping. Some studies estimate $7,500 per minute for healthcare IT systems. A single MRI outage can cost tens of thousands of dollars in lost billings per hour. Beyond the financials, downtime directly affects patient safety, treatment delays, and staff morale.

The Real-World Fallout

Equipment downtime triggers a cascade of costly effects:

• Lost Revenue: Delayed surgeries, cancelled imaging sessions, and idle operating rooms mean fewer billable services.
• Overtime & Inefficiency: Staff work longer hours to rebook patients, manage manual workarounds, and catch up.
• Patient Satisfaction Impact: Frustrated patients often turn elsewhere for care—hurting hospital reputation and future revenue.
• Regulatory & Compliance Risks: Delays in care can create reporting liabilities, quality metric hits, and reimbursement penalties.

Downtime is not just a line item on a spreadsheet—it’s a stress multiplier that ripples across the entire health system.

Despite CMMS, Problems Persist

Despite spending millions annually on Computerized Maintenance Management Systems like ServiceNow, Nuvolo, Accruent TMF and IBM Maximo, resolving downtime is an imperfect process. Systems are logically and physically distant from the people who encounter issues. Biomedical staff need to be contacted to create tickets. All too often, clinicians are too busy to report issues, and post-it notes are stuck on machines which are then pushed into corners.

Another challenge: hospitals often lack real-time visibility into the health and usage of their equipment fleet. With thousands of devices scattered across multiple facilities, it’s easy for preventive maintenance schedules to slip and critical alerts to be missed.

A Smarter Approach: Digitally Twinned Equipment

At Openscreen, we believe the solution lies in making hospital equipment visible, connected, and trackable—down to the individual device.

With Openscreen Track, hospitals can:

• Tag every piece of equipment with a unique, serialized QR Code, which encapsulates its serial number
• Enable clinicians to instantly report issues by scanning the tag, triggering a service ticket into downstream systems.
• Capture real-time usage, inspection, and maintenance history from the field.
• Activate contextual portals that connect to learning systems and provide detailed and specific instructions for use

By shifting from remote processes to issue reporting at the Point of Care, hospitals can dramatically reduce unplanned downtime, protect revenue, and improve patient outcomes.

The Bottom Line

The cost of equipment downtime in hospitals is not hidden—it’s just been accepted for too long as the cost of doing business. But it doesn’t have to be. With the right digital tools and on-location approach, hospitals can keep their equipment online, their staff productive, and their patients safe.

If your hospital is tired of losing millions to downtime, it’s time to rethink how you track and manage your assets.