Clinical engineering
patient. This is recognised by research carried out by the World Health Organization: l A number of studies have shown that between 39% and 46% of adverse events resulting from misuse of medical devices take place in the OR. In most of these studies, the cause is only indicated as (device) operation
related...Variation in medical devices between hospitals (and even within the same hospital) is one of the causes of these accidents.
l New technologies are entering medical practice at an astounding pace. This is motivated in part by patients who request (and increasingly expect) minimally invasive procedures that result in minimal damage to healthy tissue.
l The ‘side effects’ resulting from the introduction of new, often-complex technology in healthcare, however, can be considerable- both for patients and health professionals.
l Three facts emerged: 1) the devices are often not well designed for the medical environment in which they are used; 2) the user is often not trained properly to use these devices; and 3) the (new) procedures often result in long learning curves for health professionals. These three facts influence outcome of care. It has been shown that
it is valuable to develop a standardised methodology for the evaluation of the quality of medical devices and the analysis of complications resulting from their (mis)use. It is better that new equipment and instrumentation is not introduced without a thorough evaluation of its functionality (Technical Evaluation), followed by monitoring its use in clinical practice (Health Technology Assessment). These evaluations can be facilitated by a clinical engineering professional. If the benefit of a device cannot be proven through these assessments, it should not be introduced. Standardisation of equipment can solve many user problems; indeed this measure has been used effectively by aviation and industry.
Asset management software and reporting The importance of capturing hospital-wide medical equipment assets into a centralised asset management software database; allows the key decision makers to extract important financial data as to the likely life expectancy of equipment, commonality of product type, and potential planning for equipment replacement predictions for three, five or ten years.
Many NHS Trusts extend the recommended life expectancy of medical devices, and governance of this decision making will be important in management decisions and replacement thereof. The significance is greater financial visibility, greater knowledge on items that are common across the hospital and identifying new technologies. This has evolved significantly into medical equipment asset management software that now records all the individual medical device assets and information relating to planned preventative maintenance, corrective maintenance, servicing records, training information and much more. While systems, such as e-Quip, widely used in the NHS, produce substantive reports, a large number of NHS Trusts do not use systems for all medical assets and these are often managed on excel sheets at departmental level. The reporting requirements for medical device management are changing in light of the requirement for real-time data and new levels of data – such as percentage spend on device type, number of third-party contractors, as well as compliance reporting, in the future, on the Net Zero carbon implications to Trust Boards. Many contracts that are outsourced are also now asking for social value reporting, as well as cyber security and Net Zero carbon updates.
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