Development of an Equipment Replacement Planning Tool for the Veterans Administration

Veterans administration (VA) hospitals sometimes receive funding for medical equipment each fiscal year. This funding is sporadic, therefore developing a quantitative process for determining what medical equipment should be replaced is essential to spending those funds in the most efficient manner. The VA incorporates estimated replacement dates into its equipment management database, but these dates are often ignored. Analysis of the accuracy of these dates revealed that they are only predictive for non-medical equipment and are highly inaccurate for medical equipment. A survey of VA biomedical and clinical engineers showed how those in equipment management positions viewed the importance of equipment replacement planning (ERP) and how ERP is currently conducted at various VA hospitals. Survey results also showed which of eight equipment replacement indicators (age, safety, obsolescence etc.) were considered the most important to the VA engineers. This allowed weighting factors to be assigned to each of the indicators. The resultant ERP tool will be tailor-made for VA use. Users were able to prioritize which medical devices should be replaced in a way that will remove subjectivity and anecdotal ideas from the equation, thereby allowing all types of medical equipment to be objectively prioritized.