Evaluation of biomedical equipment maintenance management in a tertiary care teaching hospital

Introduction: Medical equipments play a crucial role in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illness and disease, as well as in patient rehabilitation. Its proper functioning is important for quality healthcare delivery to patients. The evaluation of medical equipment offers management, the opportunity, to appraise the overall maintenance program and identify areas for improvement for increased efficiency and effective utilization of available resources. Method: Retro-prospective mix method study was conducted with an aim to set, capture and analyze key performance indicators for Biomedical equipment available in a tertiary care teaching hospital. These indicators were used to evaluate performance of the Biomedical equipment maintenance department, Further, the indicators were benchmarked to improve performance of the equipment. Conclusion: Delinquent work orders was identified as the most important indicator which directly impacts the organizational efficiency. By employing benchmarking activity, the vendors with frequent delinquent work orders can be identified and procurement from such vendors can be avoided in the future. A simplified operating manual with common troubleshooting problems must be made available to user departments to avoid raising of trivial complaints. This ensures efficient utilization of biomedical equipment maintenance personnel’s time in addressing complex issues which requires expertise. Such operating manuals can also be used to train junior staff and students. This is particularly helpful to the night duty staff where the engineer is available only on call. A centralized supply of lifesaving equipment such as ventilators, infusion pumps, cardiac monitors should be made available in critical care areas to ensure that there is no hindrance to patient care due to shortage of equipment.