Approach for Medical Equipment Management : An Agenda for Research

*Medical Superintendent, District General Hospital, Gampaha Technological transition is one of the major concerns performance measure and shows the effectiveness of today, making current health managers to use modern maintenance and logistic support of the system in which medical equipment. However, progressive development of equipment operates (5). the production of newer medical equipment has created D) Utilization many issues, particularly related to its usage and “Utilization” of equipment is defined as ratio of operating maintenance (1). Introducing case study approach to hours to available hours or percentage of plant operating determine outcomes of medical equipment would mitigate time during which equipment is in production (6). Hence, it some of the issues to a certain extent. gives capacity utilization for a section or plant and Defining Concepts indicates the performance of the production department At the outset, it is important to differentiate some of (7). In health care settings, this is dependant on the number concepts related to the fields of logistics and Biomedical of patients who obtain services from a particular engineering. equipment.

Technological transition is one of the major concerns performance measure and shows the effectiveness of today, making current health managers to use modern maintenance and logistic support of the system in which medical equipment.However, progressive development of equipment operates (5). the production of newer medical equipment has created D) Utilization many issues, particularly related to its usage and "Utilization" of equipment is defined as ratio of operating maintenance (1).Introducing case study approach to hours to available hours or percentage of plant operating determine outcomes of medical equipment would mitigate time during which equipment is in production ( 6).Hence, it some of the issues to a certain extent.
gives capacity utilization for a section or plant and Defining Concepts indicates the performance of the production department At the outset, it is important to differentiate some of (7).In health care settings, this is dependant on the number concepts related to the fields of logistics and Biomedical of patients who obtain services from a particular engineering.

equipment. A) Reliability
Both of these concepts; "availability" and "utilization" are being used to denote two different aspects of equipment 'Reliability' is shown as a characteristic of the design of performance (8).In order to illustrate these concepts, a equipment which results in durability of the item.It is the capability of equipment to work well and work whenever category of equipment in following two healthcare settings called upon to do the job for which it is designed (2).can be considered.

Reliabilty of equipment depends on the qualilty of its
Case 1 manufacturing process.This indicates the probability that Hospital A has one ETU where only one defibrillator is the equipment would not fail in the long run.
available.This has a reputed brand name and four years B) Maintainability old.Service agreement has been signed with the 'Maintainability' is defined as the probability that an maintenance organization.Physician in the hospital equipment will be restored to a certain specific condition provide excellent inward care and follow up.ETU MOs within a given period, when maintenance is done with have encountered hardly any cardiac arrest patients during prescribed proceedure and resources (3).This indicates the last two years.What would be the anticipated outcomes probability that an equipment is successfully restored after pertaining to the equipment?failure.Service agreements must reflect this aspect .

Case 2 C) Equipment Availability
Hospital B provides care has a defibrillator in the ETU and It is argued that if one considers both relability (probability it was donated by a philanthropist.It looks old but it is that the equipment will not fail) and maintainability being daily tested for working order.All cardiac arrest (probability that an equipment is successfully restored patients have been successfully managed but there is no after failure), then additional metric is needed for the maintenance organization.What would be the anticipated probability that the component is operational at a given outcomes?time.This metric is 'availability' and it is described as a performance criterion for repairable equipment that accounts for both reliability and maintainability of the equipment (4).Availability is generally defined as the ratio of available hours to target hours of operation of equipment and indicates the readiness of the equipment for use.There are many causes of downtime which may hinder the availability of equipment; frequent breakdowns, delay in repairs, non-availability of operator staff, to name a few.Hence, the availability has been considered as a

Reliability
Seems to be high unsure Maintainability Seems to be high Seems to be low

Equipment
Seems to be high Seems to be high availability

Utilization
Seems to be low Seems to be high

E) Downtime
In Hospital C, the spectrophotometer achieved 66% availabilty and the resultant 33% loss was due to the non-'Downtime' is described as the length of time an availabilty of staff.Ventilator of the hospital D achieved equipment is not operational during the planned or targeted 83% availabilty and planned preventive maintenance hours of operation.There are many sources of downtime.
shutdown accounted for loss of 17% availabilty.As Downtime losses can be categorize as planned and "availability" is a pre-requisite for utilization, both of these unplanned; shift changes, lunch breaks and maintenance measures are important with regard to perfomance of shutdowns are considered as 'planned' where as equipment .equipment breakdown, non-availability of operator staff, lack of consumables are identified as 'unplanned' References causes( 9

Table : 2 Anticipated Equipment Outcomes of maintenance
Pearson Education Inc,In Hospital A, the defibrillator was ready for use round the clock (High availability).However, utilization was low due to few numbers of patients.Hence, 'Availability' is a more important measure than the utilization with regard to a defibrillator.