Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) role on technology management in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

Summary form only given. The health sector's physical infrastructure in the Latin American and Caribbean countries comprises 16,566 hospitals and 1,097,965 beds. Of these hospitals, 44.5% are in the public sector and 45.1% with beds. Since the early 90's most of the countries are in a Health Sector Reform process. One of the main characteristics of this reform is the decentralization, or transfer, of public hospitals to the municipalities or the local governments. Studies carried out by PAHO in 1986 of the public sector hospitals in Central and South America revealed a highly deteriorated infrastructure and equipment. As an average, only 50% of the equipment was in working condition; the other 50% was out of service, not in use for different reasons, or working without meeting the manufacturer's specifications or safety standards. In several countries this situation has improved but mainly linked to an acquisition, rather than to a programs oriented to guarantee the operation of the equipment through it's life cycle span. One of the main reasons for the above-mentioned situation was the lack of technology management programs for planning, procurement, using, maintaining, assessment, discharging, and renovating the health technologies. There is also a shortage of trained staff, mainly engineers and biomedical maintenance technicians, as well as a weak technical support after the sales of the equipment. The area of technology management has been designed as a priority for PAHO technical cooperation to its Member Countries. Since 1991, PAHO/WHO has been actively promoting technology management and clinical engineering with the collaboration of ECRI (PAHO/WHO Collaborating Center for Health Technology), the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE) and other organizations in the field of health technology. Some of the activities carried out have been: implementation of Advanced Clinical Engineering and Technology Management Workshops (ACE&TMW) in several countries, support for universities to organize post graduated studies in the clinical, hospital and bio-medical engineering, and support for the organization of Clinical Engineering Certification Boards in Brazil and Mexico.