ECRI Institute is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to bringing the discipline of applied scientific research to discover which medical procedures, devices, drugs, and processes are best, all to enable you to improve patient care. As pioneers in this science, ECRI Institute prides itself in having the unique ability to marry practical experience and uncompromising independence with the thoroughness and objectivity of evidence-based research.
ECRI Institute is one of only a handful of organizations designated as both a Collaborating Center of the World Health Organization and an Evidence-Based Practice Center by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
ECRI Institute has more than 5,000 members and clients, which includes hospitals, health systems, public and private payers, U.S. federal and state government agencies, and ministries of health, voluntary sector organizations, associations, and accrediting agencies worldwide.
To learn more about ECRI Institute, please visit their Web site at www.ecri.org.
Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System™ (UMDNS) is a standard international nomenclature and computer coding system for medical devices. UMDNS is the worldwide nomenclature that has been officially adopted by many nations. It is used in ECRI Institute’s databases and publications, as well as in thousands of healthcare institutions worldwide. UMDNS is also available in Spanish.
Sourcebase is ECRI Institute's database of medical products and their manufacturers, suppliers, and servicers. You can search the database by manufacturer or device in order to:
Updated monthly, Sourcebase includes profiles of more than 15,000 medical equipment manufacturers, more than 30,000 executive contact names, and more than 66,000 trade names in 124 countries.
Alerts Tracker is ECRI Institute's Web-based system that clearly defines what alerts and recalls need to be addressed, and who is taking action. The Alerts Tracker distributes vital information about medical device and drug alerts and recalls. The verified information from ECRI Institute, FDA, manufacturers, and other sources is sent directly to appropriate staff throughout a hospital. The customizable Web-based system offers tracking features and reports on action taken.
A critical responsibility that is performed by TMS users is responding to medical device alerts and recalls from ECRI Institute, FDA, manufacturers, and other sources. In many cases, TMS users are required to perform maintenance on the devices (assets, equipment) to correct a problem identified in the alert.
As a provider of medical device alerts, ECRI Institute makes their alerts available through the TMS application for their subscribers who are also TMS users. The help topics that follow describe how ECRI Institute alerts and TMS are integrated, and how you, ECRI Institute subscriber and TMS user, can use TMS to correct problems identified in alerts and recalls from ECRI Institute.
For example, perhaps your hospital is struggling to keep up with medical device alerts and determines that a subscription to ECRI Institute Alerts will help. Your hospital already uses TMS. You can use the Universal Medical Device Nomenclature System (UMDNS) as your TMS Sub Category Codes and the Sourcebase manufacturer codes as your Vendor codes.
Enable the ECRI Alerts module in TMS and now you can: