344 Pages 30 B/W Illustrations
    by CRC Press

    Know What to Expect When Managing Medical Equipment and Healthcare Technology in Your Organization

    As medical technology in clinical care becomes more complex, clinical professionals and support staff must know how to keep patients safe and equipment working in the clinical environment. Accessible to all healthcare professionals and managers, Medical Equipment Management presents an integrated approach to managing medical equipment in healthcare organizations. The book explains the underlying principles and requirements and raises awareness of what needs to be done and what questions to ask. It also provides practical advice and refers readers to appropriate legislation and guidelines.

    Starting from the medical equipment lifecycle, the book takes a risk-based approach to improving the way in which medical devices are acquired and managed in a clinical context. Drawing on their extensive managerial and teaching experiences, the authors explain how organizational structures and policies are set up, how funding is allocated, how people and equipment are supported, and what to do when things go wrong.

    Introduction
    Scope of Medical Equipment Management
    Who Should Read This Book?
    Approach and Content of This Book
    Clarifications
    Values and Value

    Medical Equipment and Its Life Cycle
    Introduction
    What Is Medical Equipment?
    Equipment Management Processes
    Management in Use
    What Is Clinical Engineering

    Medical Device Risk, Regulation and Governance: An Overview
    Introduction
    Medical Device Risks
    Risk Management
    Governance, Standards and Best Practice
    Risk Management and Governance in the Equipment Life Cycle
    Liability and Indemnity: When Risk Becomes Reality
    Legal Obligations of Healthcare Organisations

    Approaches to Equipment Management: Structures and Systems
    Introduction
    Organisational Structures to Support Medical Equipment Management
    Systems for Equipment Management: Balancing In-House and External Provision

    Purchase and Replacement: Allocating Priorities and Managing Resources
    Introduction
    Seeking the Ideal: Matching Needs and Resources
    Funding Routes for More Expensive Equipment
    Identifying Equipment Needs
    Relating Funding to Need
    Outline of a Possible Bidding Process

    Procurement, Specification and Evaluation
    Introduction
    Approaching a Replacement Programme and Tender
    Preparing a Specification
    Tender Receipt, Evaluation and Decision
    Collaborative Procurement

    Equipment Training for Clinical and Technical Users
    Introduction: The Need for Training
    Who to Train and What to Learn
    How to Train
    Organisation and Delivery
    Training Records
    Assessment of Training and Its Effectiveness

    Assessing Maintenance and Support Needs
    Introduction
    Balancing Elements of the Maintenance and Support Process
    What Options Are Available for Preventive Maintenance and Support?
    Assessing Maintenance and Support Requirements for Particular Devices
    Assigning Responsibility for Maintenance and Support
    Final Review and Decision Making: Deciding Who Performs Maintenance

    Maintenance Contract Management
    Introduction
    Maintenance Contract Management Life Cycle
    Contract Review and Renewal

    Adverse Incidents, Investigations, Control and Monitoring
    Introduction
    Definitions and Categories
    Why Report Adverse Incidents?
    Initial Incident Handling
    Incident Investigation
    Incident Analysis
    Devising Control Measures
    Outputs from an Incident Investigation
    Monitoring

    Supporting Research and Development
    Introduction
    Legitimising and Managing Research Projects
    How an Organisation Manages Risk Associated with Innovative Equipment
    Practical Aspects of Getting Novel Medical Equipment into Use
    In-House Construction of Novel Devices
    Creating a Novel Device
    Placing on the Market

    Disposal
    Introduction
    Condemning and Disposal Procedures
    Legislation Relevant to Disposal
    Preparing for Disposal
    Disposal Routes
    Disposal of Consumables and Batteries
    Disposal of Waste from In-House Repair and Manufacturing Activities

    Sources of Information for Equipment Management Professionals
    Introduction
    Government Agencies and Medical Device Regulatory Bodies
    Standards and Standards Bodies
    Learned Societies and Professional Bodies
    Sources of External Assistance: Commercial, Non-Profit and Peers

    Improving Performance: Quality, Indicators, Benchmarking and Audit
    Introduction
    Why Monitor Performance?
    Internal and External Monitoring
    Constructing Performance Indicators
    Performance Indicators in Equipment Management
    Benchmarking in Clinical Engineering
    Audit

    Appendix A: Practical Issues in Running an In-House Clinical Engineering Service
    Appendix B: Electrical Safety for Medical Equipment

    A Summary and References appear at the end of each chapter.

    Biography

    Keith Willson, Keith Ison, Slavik Tabakov

    "This book is excellent. It is easy to read and a great tool for clinical engineers, biomedical engineers, and every healthcare provider who is involved in the management of medical equipment. This book was very well needed by managers but also by those who are studying clinical engineering. Vendor organizations and manufacturers of medical devices should also read this book and understand how healthcare organizations operate."
    —Jean Ngoie, C.Eng., Regional Manager Biomedical Engineering, Niagara Health System, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

    "This book contains precisely the information needed by clinical engineers, either studying in academia or working in the healthcare environment. It provides all the knowledge to develop most of the activities today under the responsibility of a clinical engineering group. What most caught my attention is that it teaches not only WHAT must be done to develop such activities but also gives you hints on HOW they should be developed."
    —Saide Jorge Calil, MSc, PhD, Chairman of the Clinical Engineering Division, International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering (IFMBE), and Professor of Biomedical Engineering, University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil

    "An excellent timely book that details the underlying principles required for the interesting, exciting, and important art and science of medical equipment management.
    Covering the breadth and depth of the discipline, the book proceeds from an introduction to the field and its underlying principles before detailed examinations of the key aspects: the equipment lifecycle, risk regulation and governance, approaches to managing equipment, purchase and replacement, evaluation, staff training, assessing maintenance requirements and contract management, and how to manage and investigate incidents when problems occur with medical devices. How to support innovation and R&D and the necessary associated governance considerations are covered, recognising that innovation involves supporting development of novel equipment, and also the application of equipment in novel ways, including ways not envisaged by the original maker. Equipment disposal is often ignored and a chapter devoted to this important topic discusses the underlying principles and regulations, including environmental considerations. The final chapter deals with performance monitoring, benchmarking, and performance indicators—important tools to guide professionals in assessing their work and that of the team. The penultimate chapter guides professionals to sources of information, including professional societies, that will support them performing and developing their work.
    Who will benefit from this book? Clearly those managing medical equipment from day-to-day, both leaders and practitioners, will benefit. It will guide and instruct students. It is also important for those who manage and direct those involved in medical equipment management. … important for senior healthcare managers, medical and nursing directors, chief executives, and board members with responsibility for medical equipment. It will also benefit clinical professionals who interact with medical equipment managers."
    — John N. Amoore, PhD, Department of Medical Physics, Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock, Scotland

    "Over the years the textbook "Medical Equipment Management" has become an important resource for both clinical engineers and medical physicists. Equipment management however is a key topic not only when it comes to medical equipment’s physical and technical aspects, but also healthcare management. Therefore the book turns out to be an important resource of information and practical guidance for hospital managers, healthcare administrators, academic departments chairs, etc.

    The book is based on the lecturing of the module "Management of Medical Equipment" at the MSc Medical Engineering and Physics at King’s College London, UK – a unique module introduced in 2003 and delivered to this day. The authors, who have introduced the content of this module, have worked on the book from 2009 to 2013 and have structured the book in an unusual and very effective way. The book includes sections, allowing the user to access various moment of the Medical Equipment Life Cycle. Most of the sections include examples of three different equipment: small, medium, large (syringe driver, Ultrasound scanner; X-ray equipment). This practical approach makes the book very usable for various specialists dealing with medical equipment. Since 2014, the knowledge from the book has been applied by S Tabakov in the curriculum of the ICTP College on Medical Physics. Later the book structure and approach have been used in the MSc in Advanced Medical Physics of the ICTP and the University of Trieste and in various medical physics-related lectures at the Medical University of Plovdiv.

    To our knowledge elements of the book are used also in medical physics/engineering educational courses in various countries Many examples in the book are based on the experience and legislation of the UK and the European Union, but the authors have aimed the content to be of use in various countries. Special focus is given on applicability in LMICs where access to such or similar guidance material may be quite limited and quite often Departments for Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering do not exist. As seen from the Content the book covers the specific parts of Medical Equipment Management and gives excellent practical advice. Thus, activities as: Preparing specifications; Understanding tenders and purchase of equipment; Dealing with Service Contracts; Training staff; Investigating incidents; Improving performance; Disposing equipment, etc. are part of the activities of medical physicists in many countries. The book can find its place and value in medical physics or engineering departments as well as healthcare management & decision makers globally."

    • Dr. Magdalena Stoeva, Medical University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, and Secretary General of the IOMP, in MEDICAL PHYSICS INTERNATIONAL Journal, vol.10, No.2, 2022