Model for a web-based hospital technology management system

Abstract

The objective of this project is to design a hospital technology management system that is web-based. Technology management may be defined as 'an accountable, systematic approach to ensure that cost-effective, efficacious, safe and appropriate equipment is available to meet the demands of quality patient care'. Often, technology management in large hospitals can be a very challenging proposition due to the large numbers and categories of the equipment in such sizes of facilities. For instance, a hospital with a medium sized bed capacity of 500 beds could have greater than 4000 pieces of equipment. These range from simple thermometers and stethoscopes to complex CAT scanners and imaging equipment such as MRI. Technology management in such facilities would encompass inventory control, vendor selection, risk management, maintenance scheduling and staff training scheduling. Common offshoots of not having effective technology management for such a facility include the inadvertent use of faulty or poorly designed equipment or the inappropriate use of otherwise proper equipment by untrained staff. It is the job of clinical engineers in medical establishments to carry out technology management. They rely on information from the FDA and medical device manufacturers to do this. Sometimes, the FDA may deem a particular device unsuitable for safe use and clinical engineers have to rely on seeing this information in a timely way to make the decisions regarding usage and management of that equipment, when it is present in their inventory. Currently there are computerized maintenance and management systems which offer various features. The focus of this thesis was to improve the usefulness by implementing a system which would automatically obtain FDA and device manufacturers' information about equipment so that the clinical engineer can obtain this information in a timely manner. The system would be accessible to the hospital staff over the Internet. It would provide data about other aspects of device management such as, whether users have been trained in its use, history of failures and user errors on the device, history of usage and downtime. Such a system could help clinical engineers ensure that the properly trained people, to secure patient safety, use the most suitable equipment.