Preventive maintenance prioritization index of medical equipment using quality function deployment

Area of Science:

• Clinical Engineering
• Biomedical Equipment Management
• Healthcare Technology Management

Background:

• Effective preventive maintenance (PM) is crucial for clinical engineering to ensure medical equipment functionality.
• Increasing medical equipment variety necessitates improved management and control of maintenance activities.
• Current PM strategies may lack robust prioritization, impacting resource allocation and equipment reliability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a novel model for prioritizing preventive maintenance of medical equipment.
• To integrate Quality Function Deployment (QFD) principles into a framework for medical equipment maintenance.
• To establish a systematic approach for assigning PM priorities based on critical criteria.

Main Methods:

• A three-domain framework model was developed: requirement (House of Quality matrix), function (design matrix), and concept.
• Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was employed to generate a prioritization index for PM.
• The model was tested on 200 medical devices across 17 departments in two Italian hospitals, covering 70 equipment types.

Main Results:

• The developed model successfully generated a prioritization index for preventive maintenance.
• A high correlation was observed between risk-based criteria and the resulting prioritization list.
• The model proposes five distinct priority levels for implementing preventive maintenance actions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed QFD-based model offers a structured and effective method for prioritizing medical equipment preventive maintenance.
• This approach enhances the management and control of maintenance activities, crucial in diverse clinical settings.
• The model's validation demonstrates its utility in aligning maintenance efforts with equipment risk and criticality.