Medical Devices Procurement Protocol

Abstract

The appropriate management of medical equipment is vital for ensuring safe, effective, timely, efficient, and equitable healthcare. Yet management of medical equipment is quickly becoming less effective by traditional methods because most healthcare delivery organizations must manage tens of thousands of medical devices. The management of these devices involves a wide array of activities including planning, procurement, inspection, inventory, testing, monitoring, maintenance, and de-commissioning so it became necessary to use modern computerized methods. This research aims to design a protocol for medical devices procurement including acquisition & selection and computerization of selection process to preserve the internal budget of health care institution and to ensure that equipments used in patient care are safe, available, accurate, and affordable. To achieve the objectives, Data was gathered by studying different mechanisms as well as gray literature and experts’ opinion from various healthcare facilities in Khartoum state. Also Questionnaire about medical equipment procurement was distributed and answered by biomedical engineers and were analyzed by SPSS program. And found that there is a lack in medical devices procurement policies and its application in many health care organizations. Requirements for medical devices procurement was suggested and the selection process was programmed as software package using Delphi language then implemented in Ribat university hospital and obtained good results by providing high accuracy in calculations.