Authors (including presenting author) :
Tong WC(1), Kwok CS(1), Lau WK(1), Leung CH(1)
Affiliation :
(1) Procurement and Materials Management Department, United Christian Hospital
Introduction :
For better utilization of clinical equipment in surging period under limitation of space and to minimize the impact on clinical operation under circumstance of equipment breakdown, KEC started establishing an offsite equipment store, namely equipment library, to serve a central pool to stock up surplus equipment items and buffer spare parts to provide better clinical equipment support to users to cope with upsurge in demands and operational needs. especially under urgent situation such as the 5th wave of COVID when there is extreme urgency for medical support.
Objectives :
(1) To improve the equipment uptime and availability when no additional equipment was purchased by ward, (2) to shorten the repair time and equipment downtime, and (3) to save space in clinical wards
Methodology :
1) A central equipment pool and 2) Spare Parts Inventory were set up in 3) an off-site leased store as EL.
Result & Outcome :
(1) Improved the equipment availability to cope with service demand during the surging period and COVID-19
In 2022, EL has loaned out 524 numbers of equipment with providing additional 115,235 days of equipment availability in KEC hospital whereas 91% and 6% of the loan applications were driven by service surge and repair case substitution respectively.
(2) Reduced the equipment downtime to minimize the impact on clinical operation
Total downtime of equipment was reduced by 1937 days in 24 breakdown cases in 2022.
The establishment of localized spare parts inventory for equipment has shorten the procurement and logistic lead time for acquisition of spare parts from 57 to 0.2 days compared with non-stocked maintenance cases.
(3) Customer Satisfaction Survey
With more than 40 survey returns across 24 departments in KEC hospitals, clinical departments expressed their satisfaction and appreciation on performance with average score 8/10 marks in satisfaction survey in respect of provision of timely support, the variety of types of equipment provided and business ideas of the program which could assist users overcoming the dilemma of ad-hoc upsurge demand on essential equipment
The loaning requests for service surge in view of COVID-19 was increased by 55% (from 338 equipment in 2021 to 524 in 2022) when comparing with the loan requests throughout 2021. This shows that the setup of EL could help in spare equipment availability for frontline users throughout the 5th outbreak of COVID-19 in KEC.
