Evidence-based approach to medical equipment maintenance monitoring

Maintenance is a crucial part of the life cycle of medical equipment. We applied a specific set of codes to classify the corrective and scheduled maintenance work orders at the University Hospital of Careggi (Florence, Italy). A set of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) (financial, technological and organizational) helps in evaluating the performance of the medical equipment maintenance. The analysis of KPIs (related to costs, age and SM completion rate) revealed some problems in maintenance strategy. The results show, starting from the evidences (i.e. the failures), that the combination of these two methods can give a periodical cross-analysis of the maintenance performance and indicate the most appropriate procedure.