Affiliations: [a] Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Biomedical Laboratory, University of Florence, Italy | [b] Clinical Engineering Contract Professor, University of Florence, Italy | [c] Clinical Engineering, University of Florence, Italy | [d] Electromagnetic Theory and Techniques, University of Florence, Italy | [e] Clinical Engineering Department, AOU Careggi University Hospital of Florence, Italy
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: Roberto Miniati, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Biomedical Lab., University of Florence, Via S. Marta 3, 50139 Florence, Italy. E-mail: roberto.miniati@unifi.it.
Abstract: Technology management in healthcare must continually respond and adapt itself to new improvements in medical equipment. Multidisciplinary approaches which consider the interaction of different technologies, their use and user skills, are necessary in order to improve safety and quality. An easy and sustainable methodology is vital to Clinical Engineering (CE) services in healthcare organizations in order to define criteria regarding technology acquisition and replacement. This article underlines the critical aspects of technology management in hospitals by providing appropriate indicators for benchmarking CE services exclusively referring to the maintenance database from the CE department at the Careggi Hospital in Florence, Italy.
Keywords: Health technology management, clinical engineering, database analysis, support systems in healthcare
