Evaluation of clinical engineering performance indicators

a proposal for a university public hospital

Abstract

Objective: To propose a set of performance indicators for the Clinical Engineering Department (CE) of a public university hospital. Methodology: After a bibliographic search of clinical engineering indicators cited in the literature, a questionnaire was applied to hospital managers of high complexity, professors and specialists to evaluate the relevance, credibility of the result, calculation effort, simplicity of interpretation and calculation algorithm of indicators. Results: 14 indicators were proposed to the CE Department: percentage of completion of the preventive maintenance program, average service time, average machine downtime, number of repeated repairs, percentage of total work orders completed, number of service orders by area, percentage of repairs performed externally, percentage of repairs performed by user error, maintenance cost versus cost of acquisition, total cost of maintenance, employee satisfaction, technical team training, customer satisfaction and user training. Conclusions: In a large public institution and tertiary level, the choice of the indicators to compose a panel of indicators for the management of the CE Department, as well as the calculation of the results, should be considered, since State institutions suffer direct impacts on the availability of funds and bureaucratic obstacles that often generate impasses that are difficult to solve. It is important that there is a work of awareness of the employees about their role in the results of the indicators and the search of the goals established by the organization since only this set will allow successful management.