Medical Equipment Maintenance: Management and Oversight

Abstract

Thorough simple, clear, easy-to-read, concise, and filled with informative chapters, this book takes you on a journey guided by Binseng Wang's extensive and very rich professional experience, which includes the State University of Campinas in Brazil, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, ARAMARK Healthcare Technologies, and other institutions.Audience: According to Wang, this book is targeted to a broad spectrum of professionals, starting with students of business management, healthcare management and biomedical engineering, extending to to biomedical/clinical engineering (CE) managers and biomedical equipment technicians, and ending with hospital administrators and senior healthcare executives.Since the book starts with foundational summary of U.S. laws, regulations, and standards related to medical equipment, one may get the impression that this book is solely for professionals in the United States. However, the opposite is true. At a time when there are extensive efforts spent on regional and global harmonization of standards, this foundational information is also very beneficial for professionals outside the United States.Features: The other chapters of the book are few and they cover the core functions of medical equipment maintenance, CE department management, and performance management. There are also two valuable appendices covering sample policies for CE departments and information and data sources on the Internet.The chapters have few, but very nice and clear illustrations.The author sheds light on many crucial points, including the importance of a biomedical staff presence with the clinical users during in-service training, and advice to avoid sending equipment out for testing. Wang also advises his colleagues to get out of their silos, shake off their introversion, and conduct periodic discussions with all stakeholders. Focusing on the big picture, he argues, will lead one to consider the impact of down time, patient flow and income versus the cost saving in repairing the equipment.Assessment: Having worked in this field for more than 34 years in the American University of Beirut Medical Center, Lebanon, where we apply international standards, I find this book to be a very valuable resource. I highly recommend that my colleagues in the biomedical/clinical engineering profession read it and share its contents with the administrators and chief executives of their institutions.