The Status of Medical Equipment Maintenance Management in the Hospitals of Hamedan University of Medical Sciences in 2015

Undoubtedly a huge amount of hospital funds are spent on purchase and renovation of medical equipment, which requires correct operation by users in order to preserve national capital. Improving the quality of health services, increases the efficiency and effectiveness of equipment and optimal use of funds depends on the planning and implementation of standard systems of equipment maintenance. This study aimed to analyze the situation of equipment maintenance management and to determine its relation with the annual cost of hospitals. In this cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study, the maintenance status of medical equipment of 15 university hospitals in four indicators of purchase, repairments, quality control and technical force was checked and rated by field visits and using a medical equipment maintanance checklist that its validity and reliability were approved by the Iranian Medical Equipment General Office. Also, the cost of each indicator was obtained from hospitals and compared with the scores of the same indicator and their correlation was calculated using Pearson's test. Correlation coefficients between maintenance score and reducing purchasing costs (0.49), reducing the cost of repairments (0.29) and quality control costs (0.60) showed a significant positive relation between the status of maintenance of medical equipment and costs (P <0.05). Correct implementation of medical equipment maintenance management and quality assurance of measures related to maintenance in medical centers, help reduce costs in the areas of purchasing, repairments and quality control of medical equipment.