Patient Safety – The Next Generation

Hillel Yaffe Medical Center is the first in the world to use an uninterruptable power supply using hydrogen-based fuel cell technology for hospital medical systems. The main advantage: even a very brief power outage will not be felt, and the medical procedure will continue uninterrupted, even during long power outages. Additional Israeli hospitals are expected to purchase the system, which was previously used only in space programs and manufacturing plants worldwide.

The system, installed in the cardiac catheterization room of Hillel Yaffe Medical Center’s Cardiology Department, is very good news for medicine, since this UPS uses hydrogen, rather than diesel, enabling constant, complete backup, even during power outages. The system is completely clean, with no greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that it meets increasing world demand to reduce air pollution and halt global warming.

It should be noted in this context that Hillel Yaffe Medical Center is the first hospital to be awarded the Green Mark of the Standards Institution of Israel for medical institutions.

: Inauguration ceremony of the new system in the Cardiac Catheterization Room – the Technical Services Department staff; Dr. Amnon Ben Moshe and his deputy, Rafi Koren; the Cardiac Catheterization Unit staff, and the installation team from the company that provided the system

More advantages of the new system: there is no need for periodic part replacement. The system is checked remotely by a program that checks system performance and issues alerts about problems. What’s more, its maintenance costs are low, since some are attributable to the no-longer-necessary use of diesel which needs to be periodically replaced.

Hydrogen-based uninterruptable power supply systems were previously used only in the space industry or non-medical establishments, with a critical need for reliable and constantly available power backup. The company that supplies the technology turned to Hillel Yaffe Medical Center offering to install the system, and after a comprehensive simulation, including measuring the accuracy of the cardiac catheterization system, the decision was made to install it. The system serves as a backup in the event of a power outage, with no time limit, as long as there is a supply of hydrogen tanks.

“After the successful installation at Hillel Yaffe, other hospitals in Israel have shown interest, and I am sure they will also rush to adopt it,” said Ronen Edri, head of Technical Services and an engineer at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center. “I’m particularly pleased that we can have another means of addressing patient safety.”