Health Technology Management Using GETS in Times of Health Crisis

Abstract

Good health technology management (HTM) is mandatory to assure high quality of the service delivered by any healthcare-providing institution (HCI). When fast responses are needed on critical aspects of the institution´s installed equipment park, as during the current coronavirus disease pandemic, a computerized HTM system is considerably valuable. This article presents typical questions that can be responded within a few seconds using GETS, a HTM system developed at UNICAMP to support clinical engineers at Brazilian public HCI. Using data from 10 public HCI registered in the GETS system (888 pulmonary ventilators), it was possible to see, for instance that, only ~28% of the ventilators are aged less than 5 years, while ~45% are 11 year-old or older, which is a cause for concern because we have previously observed that equipment downtime due to corrective maintenance, as well as failure frequency and maintenance cost, increase with age. This piece of information is certainly helpful to quickly evaluate priorities for equipment purchase and distribution, and to support long-term planning of equipment acquisition, as to allow better preparedness for (unavoidable) public health crises and more rational use of financial resources by the public health system.