Defining the BC Provincial Preventive Maintenance Program: World Health Organization Device Type Classification

Abstract

There is no slowing down the perennial increase of in-hospital medical devices, which presents an ongoing challenge to BME departments with limited resources available for service demands. A computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) is a prerequisite for the execution and sustainment of a successful preventive maintenance (PM) program. Implementing a provincial database revealed that medical device inspections, PM schedules, and job procedures varied widely between provincial facilities. This paper will focus on the successful implementation of a Provincial PM program in British Columbia and the historical context to arrive at this point. It will also describe the risk and frequency of device types that constitute the PM schedule using the World Health Organizations “Medical Equipment Maintenance Programme” methodology. Over the course of 20 months, the British Columbia Biomedical Engineering (BCBME) CMMS team classified over 1,000 medical device types. Overall, the BCMBE program reduced the total number of device types for both Critical and Normal devices, and increased the number of Not Scheduled devices and improved the efficiency and efficacy of our PM program. It is our hope that others will find value in our approach and its implementation at a provincial level.