A Systematic Review of Medical Equipment Reliability Assessment in Improving the Quality of Healthcare Services

Aizat Hilmi Zamzam; Ahmad Khairi Abdul Wahab; Muhammad Mokhzaini Azizan; Suresh Chandra Satapathy; Khin Wee Lai; Khairunnisa Hasikin

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2021.753951

A Systematic Review of Medical Equipment Reliability Assessment in Improving the Quality of Healthcare Services

Front Public Health. 2021 Sep 27:9:753951. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2021.753951. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Aizat Hilmi Zamzam^{1

2}, Ahmad Khairi Abdul Wahab¹, Muhammad Mokhzaini Azizan³, Suresh Chandra Satapathy⁴, Khin Wee Lai¹, Khairunnisa Hasikin¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
² Engineering Services Department, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
³ Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Nilai, Malaysia.
⁴ School of Computer Engineering, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Deemed to Be University, Bhubaneswar, India.

Abstract

Medical equipment highly contributes to the effectiveness of healthcare services quality. Generally, healthcare institutions experience malfunctioning and unavailability of medical equipment that affects the healthcare services delivery to the public. The problems are frequently due to a deficiency in managing and maintaining the medical equipment condition by the responsible party. The assessment of the medical equipment condition is an important activity during the maintenance and management of the equipment life cycle to increase availability, performance, and safety. The study aimed to perform a systematic review in extracting and categorising the input parameters applied in assessing the medical equipment condition. A systematic searching was undertaken in several databases, including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, IEEE Xplore, Emerald, Springer, Medline, and Dimensions, from 2000 to 2020. The searching processes were conducted in January 2020. A total of 16 articles were included in this study by adopting Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). The review managed to classify eight categories of medical equipment reliability attributes, namely equipment features, function, maintenance requirement, performance, risk and safety, availability and readiness, utilisation, and cost. Applying the eight attributes extracted from computerised asset maintenance management system will assist the clinical engineers in assessing the reliability of medical equipment utilised in healthcare institution. The reliability assessment done in these eight attributes will aid clinical engineers in executing a strategic maintenance action, which can increase the equipment's availability, upkeep the performance, optimise the resources, and eventually contributes in providing effective healthcare service to the community. Finally, the recommendations for future works are presented at the end of this study.

Keywords: assessment; biomedical equipment; maintenance management; medical devices; performance evaluation; prediction.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Systematic Review

MeSH terms

Delivery of Health Care*
Health Services*
Reproducibility of Results