Medical equipment inventorying and installation of a web-based management system - Pilot application in the periphery of crete, Greece

Abstract

The development of an equipment inventory of the medical devices installed and used in the Peripheral Healthcare System (PHS) of Crete, Greece is considered to be the cornerstone for the initiation of a process for the evaluation, monitoring and management of biomedical technology in this institution. The medical equipment inventorying process is performed by the Institute of Biomedical Technology, in cooperation with the Biomedical Technology Unit from the Department of Medical Physics of the University of Patras, Greece. The whole procedure is divided and accomplished in three phases: 1) collection of medical equipment data on structured paper sheet forms; 2) data entry in a computerized management system; 3) installation of an in-house developed webbased medical equipment management system, called WEBPRAXIS, used to store and manage the medical equipment. As a result, the procedure leads to the creation of an electronic database, containing essential information for the identification of each medical device such as: equipment control number, device group, type and manufacturer, serial number, department and location, age and acquisition cost. Total number of 4 958 medical devices from 22 healthcare institutions are recorded. Furthermore, the medical equipment is classified in 355 device groups, 2 050 device types and 715 manufacturers. The current project overcomes a number of problems, present in the field of biomedical technology management in the PHS of Crete. The most important are: 1) ineffective practice of keeping local inventory files, due to insufficient information on codification and nomenclature standards; lack of computerized systems and software, and lack of personnel experience; 2) no centralized database for the medical equipment in PHS of Crete, resulting in poor technology management, assessment, planning and decision making. The systematic use of WEB-PRAXIS is expected to improve the management of medical equipment with significant benefits related to cost-efficiency and safety.