BIOMEDICAL EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT AND MAINTENANCE, A PROCESS EVALUATION AT A GOVERNMENT HOSPITAL – TELANGANA, INDIA

Abstract

Modern hospitals with a super-specialty level of care facilities rely largely on medical gadgets, the
biomedical equipment to offer precision care to their patients both for medical and surgical treatment
options. This highly specialized equipment requires proper maintenance and care in terms of calibration to provide accurate
information about the patient vital signs that are crucial for their diagnosis and line of care. It becomes necessary for a
systematic procedure for their management and maintenance – here comes the importance of biomedical equipment
management and maintenance program devised by Government of India to enhance the public healthcare facilities through
proper preventive and breakdown maintenance of their biomedical equipment, thereby to enable doctors to get reliable
information for their patient care. The present study aims at the evaluation of this prime program implementation results from
the end-users of a tertiary care teaching healthcare facility in Telangana state.
End users expressed their opinion that 16.6% felt the services are excellent after the introduction of BMMP services, 33.7% said
GOOD after (22.0% before), 9.6% said SATISFIED after (18.9% before), 3.1% said POOR after (7.9% before) the introduction of
Biomedical Equipment Management and Maintenance Program BMMP services.This is our original work, done by us and is not
presented or published previously. We have no conict of interest
1. General Manager, Department of Hospital Administration, Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad, Telangana, India
2. Assistant Manager Biomedical Engineer, Department of Hospital Administration, Gandhi Hospital, Secunderabad
3. Professor and Head, Department of Hospital Administration, Gandhi Medical College &Hospital, SecunderabadEnd users
opined that 30% of equipment was being repaired in≤1 month, 70% of the equipment take about ≤ 1 month for the repair of
biomedical equipment before BMMP. They opined that 40% of equipment is being repaired ≥ 15 days, 30% of the equipment is
repaired ≤ 15 days, about 20% of biomedical equipment is repaired within weekdays and about 10% of biomedical equipment
is repaired within one day after the introduction of the BMMP program. These values are indicative and for study purpose only,
there are instances of equipment being in the state of breakdown beyond one month also – which were with the instance of
Annual Maintenance Contract / Comprehensive Maintenance Contract termination and no clear instructions were available
with BMMP contractor for their renewal and maintenance of continual contracts and upkeep of these machines, which were
otherwise looked after by Original Equipment Manufacturers OEMs through Memorandum of Understanding with the
Hospital.