Study of Medical Devices Management with the approach of Evaluation of Usability in Tehran University of Medical Science's Hospitals

Nowadays Medical devices have an important role in diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation of patients and also in medical education. However, in the recent years usage and maintenance of these devices have not been in a good situation in developing and even some developed countries. Therefore fundamental changes and reprocessing has begun among management and usability of medical devices in these countries. This research is aimed to determine the management situation with the approach of usability evaluation in order to change and reprocess the management system among Tehran University of Medical Sciences general teaching hospitals at 2012-2013. This study was a descriptive and cross sectional research among eight general teaching hospitals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in 1391. The research tool was a self-made check list consisting of 38 questions about medical devices management condition and Nielsen questionnaire about usability of these devices which were completed by head nurses of CCU, ICU and OR departments with the help of medical devices supervisor in 56 departments of these hospitals. Data were collected and analyzed by SPSS software. We found that medical device management and the usability of these devices were not in a good situation in these hospitals as well as usage of electronic information technology. Regarding the results of this research specially in the usability of medical devices, we recommend that users and supervisors of medical devices should be trained about usability criteria and evaluation procedures of these criteria, and the relationship between management styles and applications of quality improvement and pay attention to reprocessing of medical devices management among hospitals administrators and healthcare policy makers to select and purchase the best devices.