A Quantitative Model for Replacement of Medical Equipment Based on Technical and Economic Factors

Abstract

Medical equipment plays a vital role in diagnosing, monitoring, and treating different kinds of medical conditions. The biomedical and clinical engineering departments within a hospital are generally responsible for inspecting and managing the maintenance of medical equipment, ensuring that the breakdown of equipment and accidents made during diagnosis and treatment are forbidden. Maintaining the efficiency of medical equipment is a challenging topic due to the fact that many factors impact it through the equipment life cycle. Traditional approaches are based on the technical factors to estimate the lifetime of medical equipment. Additional factors, such as environmental factors, can also affect medical equipments lifespan. This paper introduces a new approach for evaluating medical equipment depending on two dimensions; the standard identified technical criteria and the added environmental criteria. These factors, combined together, affect the decision making process by a clinical engineer in case of medical equipment failure.