Evaluation and Hospital Equipment Planning: Issues and Challenges

Medical equipment are a key item of any healthcare center or hospital. However, sometimes, the managers of hospitals fail to fulfil the demand of patients timely. Most of the time, the reason behind this turns out to be a lack of appropriate equipment present in the hospital.

To ensure that your hospital is utilizing each and every piece of equipment optimally along with making sure it is available in the hospital whenever its need arises, it is best to contact Health Care Equipment Planners.

Faced with openings to the future, we cannot speak of hospital technologies as a homogeneous, yet complementary whole. Its different components are transformed over time, each for its own account.

As these are coordinated parts obeying a common problem, these developments influence each other mutually. Moreover, the transformation of each part gradually modifies the configuration of the whole.

Here, the task of planning comes up as a savior. Planning requires consultation and global coordination that a Medical Equipment Planning Company can carry out effectively.

Equipment planning must respond to a public health vision based on epidemiological trends, which must be taken into account to determine the types of equipment needed according to a given medical service, the quality of the equipment, and the medical expertise required.

Medical equipment is, for the manager, the source of all kinds of difficulties, either in the purchase, in use, or in the reform of the equipment due to obsolescence and wear. For example, let us mention:

  • The choice of devices of poor design and of dubious quality,
  • The use of devices that are expensive to operate and complex to handle,
  • An expensive and deficient maintenance service,
  • Rapid obsolescence.

Besides, the maintenance of medical devices represents a major management problem, both from a preventive and a corrective point of view. Several causes are responsible for this state of affairs, in particular:

  • The majority of the establishments have neither the staff nor the adequate material resources to ensure an operational maintenance service for medical devices.
  • The services provided by the companies are generally very expensive, even for hospitals with service contracts. In addition, it is sometimes necessary to have several service contracts, depending on the variety of devices used.
  • External services often leave something to be desired for several reasons: absence of a service center in a region, long repair times, non-availability of spare parts as well as difficulty in controlling the nature and quality of the work carried out.
  • Minor problems which represent about 75% of total breakdowns would benefit from being settled by a Health Care Equipment Planner in place.
  • There is an almost general absence of preventive maintenance programs that would help prevent breakage, extend the life of appliances and ensure their optimal and safe operation.

Since we can see that modern and developing hospitals often face several problems related to equipment planning, it is recommended to consult Health Care Equipment & Services Companies to get the best out of your hospital’s equipment and to provide quality health services.

How to Choose Operating Tables for Your Hospital?

There are a huge number of surgical operating tables on the market today. Quality products made available by Top Hospital Equipment Companies at almost any price have made it difficult to make smart decisions.

As you assess your capabilities, keep in mind that the key industry trends are clinical efficacy, patient safety, and increased productivity.

Health Care Equipment & Service

What procedures will you perform?

The main criterion you should consider when buying a surgical table is the tasks that it must perform. A clinic that specializes in certain tasks has different needs than a general clinic that performs a wide range of operations.

For example, a versatile operating table is used to support a wide array of accesses for various specialties. It also includes C-arm support for fluoroscopy and other imaging sessions. This flexibility makes general surgery tables a leader in the medical market.

Institutions that specialize in neurology, orthopedics, urology, bariatric surgery need to purchase an instrument designed specifically for this purpose.

What are the main features that are important to you?

When faced with a choice, consider some of the key characteristics that you should look for in any model. These include:

  • Convenient patient access
  • Possibility of safe positioning of the patient
  • Fast and easy connection of video visualization systems

A robust structure must have a fully sealed column, electrically, mechanically, or pneumatically driven. The full seal prevents leakage of liquids such as blood, water, saline, betadine. It should be soft enough to distribute body pressure optimally.

The layer material can be radiolucent so that it remains invisible during radiography. As suggested by Health Care Equipment & Service providers, in specialized processes such as neurosurgery, a motorized neurosurgical operating table with a radiopaque tabletop is better suited.

Prefer fixed or mobile?

In general terms, operating tables are classified as stationary and mobile. Each type has its own advantages as well as disadvantages.

Stationary system

Features a foot that is securely anchored to the floor and many dedicated top sections that can be removed or added as needed, depending on the workflow.

Mobile operating table

Can be used in institutions of any size. So the position of the instrument can be easily changed depending on the procedure.

Factors to consider when choosing:

Hygiene

Fixed devices are more hygienic because mobile devices have a built-in roller that is very difficult to disinfect.

Space

The main disadvantage of stationary machines is that they take up a lot of space and require a well thought out and optimized working area.

Communication with diagnostic systems

It is impossible to use a stationary table for communication with MRI, CT systems of angiographic studies.

Specialization

Mobile designs have countertops that are difficult to replace, making them most suitable for use as multi-functional operating tables.

Medical equipment planning is a dynamic process that involves a whole team, usually consisting of doctors, users, architects, technicians, and management, which considers service needs, the suitability of health technology, and the conditions and design and construction plans of the building.

Planning for the required medical equipment should be considered from the design stage to the development of health care facilities. The best Health Care Equipment & Services Companies, like Astron Healthcare, can help you in this matter by providing input to the construction team regarding the requirements of the rooms in your hospital, rooms that require special specifications, such as ICU, NICU, HCU, PICU, laboratories, radiology rooms, and central operating rooms.

Why One Should Consult Healthcare Care Equipment and Services Companies?

Medical equipment is inseparable from everyday life. Particularly important, it offers the possibility of diagnosing, treating and maintaining health and well-being. It is of no doubt that medical or healthcare centres continuously get bombarded with new and different medical equipment. In such a condition, it is very important for healthcare providers to contact Health Care Equipment & Services Companies as with their help you will find everything you need to meet your medical equipment needs.

Why One Should Consult Healthcare Care Equipment and Services Companies?

These companies offer quality products that are well suited to any medical specialty. But medical equipment is not just for healthcare professionals. The individual also needs it to treat harmless ailments. And this is why doing Medical Equipment Planning is highly valuable for the administrators of hospitals.

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT:

TO TREAT AILMENTS ON A DAILY BASIS

Contrary to what one might think, medical equipment is not only made up of sophisticated diagnostic equipment such as electrocardiographs or even stethoscopes. The small care instruments which constitute a basic first aid kit can also be qualified as medical equipment.

The equipment to be put in a first aid kit must make it possible to deal with superficial wounds and to treat more serious disorders (vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, deep wounds, etc.): thermometer, scissors and forceps, disposable surgical gloves, medical alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, and bands.

TO PROVIDE QUALITY CARE

For a professional doctor, it is essential to have good quality medical equipment in order to provide quality care to his patients. The right equipment makes it easier to cure a disease while being a great help in diagnosis. In fact, it is not wrong to say that good tools make good doctors.

Among the essential medical equipment for a professional doctor, we can cite: defibrillation devices (especially if the doctor practices in a place far from the emergency services), pulse oximeters, first aid bags, etc. diagnostics are also essential: ECG machine, stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, audiometer, electric examination table, examination sheet, etc.

TO SAVE LIVES

In hospitals, good medical equipment is essential to save lives. Emergency or resuscitation staff must always be ready for possible interventions on patients. Strokes, fractures, discomfort can arise at any time.

Under these conditions, only quality medical equipment will allow caregivers to intervene quickly on all fronts. In addition, we must not overlook the fact that it is always more pleasant and more motivating to work with good equipment.

IMPROVE THE COMFORT OF LIFE

There is medical equipment that has been specially designed to improve the living comfort of certain categories of people, including the elderly and people with disabilities. An important player in the field of medicine, Health Care Equipment & Services Companies can provide you with various equipment for the comfort and well-being of your body: non-slip plate, weighted fork, weighted knife, wardrobe chair, infrared massage device, massage seat, and hearing amplifier. Hence, we cannot overemphasize the importance of sourcing medical equipment from a reputable supplier offering good guarantees, this is in the interest of your business and especially in the interest of patients.

A Growing Need of Medical Equipment Planning

In a hospital where a large no. of personnel work, it is obvious that it will also need a lot of medical equipment. These medical devices that are specialized and made to serve patients in a better way help the hospital workers and doctors to carry out their work smoothly and efficiently.

A Growing Need of Medical Equipment Planning

Hence, taking help of Health Care Equipment & Services Companies for good medical equipment planning is considered to be the ideal option.

Medical technology has been one of the emerging industries in recent years. Also, the demand for important devices in medicine has also grown strongly due to global demand. The list of medical devices has grown long as they are used in very different institutions. With proper Medical Equipment Planning, medical centres and hospitals can now make it possible to keep up with the growing demand.

However, places where medical equipment are needed are not just hospitals as readers might assume. Above all, it is medical practices that are increasingly taking on the preliminary services of hospitals. There are also numerous medical devices in the area of ​​rehabilitation centres or old people’s homes. This covers a wide range of work. A widespread trend in the real estate sector has also led to the increase in this demand.

What medical devices are there?

This trend also has a direct impact on the real estate sector. Numerous new hospitals have sprung up. The new medical devices have to be connected and sockets are required for this. It doesn’t matter whether it’s classic operating tables or monitors. The most important medical devices include bedpanwashers, oxygen monitors, insulin pumps and dialysis machines.

The acquisition of these devices is also to be seen depending on the purpose. One can speak of a causal relationship, especially in old people’s homes with special target groups. The disease courses are very different here. However, an increasing influencing factor is determined by external risks.

Acquisition of medical equipment – indirect connection with causal dangers

In this regard, it is important to point out the risk of a possible impending blackout. Many risk profiles now indicate this and plan appropriate care in an emergency. This trend also has an enormous impact on the acquisition of important medical devices. Although these devices do not have anything to do with the treatment of the patient, they are nevertheless elementary in the planning phase.

Think, for example, of battery-powered motor systems and the installation of emergency power generators. The entire operating theatre lighting must also work in an emergency. It must therefore also be taken into account in the entire planning phase when purchasing medical equipment. This aspect is very important, especially in acute treatment. Moreover, not taking care of medical equipment in real time will take a lot of time of hospital staff to find the required device at the right time. So, it becomes more and more essential for a medical centre to consult experts in the field like Health Care Equipment & Services Companies.

Why Telemedicine is the Key to Good Medical Equipment Planning

Did you know, the number of patient visits during the pandemic can disrupt hospital management? Therefore, telemedicine can be the solution. With the help of Medical Equipment Planning and the use of telemedicine, you can expand the range of services provided, so that patients who are afraid to seek treatment directly at the hospital can still consult a doctor remotely.

Why Telemedicine is the Key to Good Medical Equipment Planning

Telemedicine capabilities that can connect patients with better access to health services can be a better solution for equitable distribution of health services and patient care. So, how does telemedicine help hospitals during a pandemic? Here is the full explanation!

Know the Advantages of Telemedicine

To find out more about the use of telemedicine in your health care practice, you need to know in advance what are the advantages that are offered by the telemedicine system and cannot be offered by conventional practice. Some of them such as:

Facilitate the distribution of information, especially information related to health among health workers, so that the quality of patient care remains well standardized. In addition, patients can also use it to find out how to prevent and treat a disease by consulting directly with a doctor remotely.

Speeding up the referral process, which is often a problem for hospitals. By keeping the right equipment in your hospitals with the help of Health Care Equipment Planners, the referral process can be done quickly and efficiently.

More accurate chronic disease monitoring, even if done remotely, monitoring via tele medical applications can be done accurately thanks to technology that allows remote checking. Examples such as diabetes, cancer, hypertension, and many more.

Expanding the range of services, with telemedicine you can also serve patients from various regions, so that the range of services can be wider than just using conventional doctor consultations.

Telemedical Skills in Health Services

Another thing that is still a concern for hospital management and health workers is the extent to which telemedicine is capable of serving the needs of patients. At least, there are 3 main functions or uses of telemedicine in helping health workers, namely:

  • Interactive communication, with services such as consultation and examination by health workers in real time.
  • A ‘save-and-forward’ function, where patient’s medical data will be collected and transmitted to other medical personnel for a more efficient examination.
  • Remote monitoring, which can be useful for monitoring chronic diseases at a more affordable cost and faster time.

You need to know, all of the above functions can be available independently for each telemedicine system, it can also be a combination of each function in the same system. So, make sure that the application or telemedicine system you choose already has some of these functions. That way, you can use it more optimally to restore lost cash flow due to the pandemic.

With years of experience in providing information technology solutions for hospital and clinic management, Astron Healthcare provides best consultancy services with the ability to customize according to your needs. That way, the initial investment cost becomes more competitive.

Interested in knowing more about this solution? Contact Health Care Equipment & Services Companies now and find the right solution for the hospital or clinic you manage!

Rooms Criteria Provides by Health Care Equipment & Services Companies?

The Hospital Construction Companies in India has developed specific know-how in the design and construction of public and private hospitals, clinics and nursing homes as well as in the redevelopment and modernization of existing structures.

Rooms Criteria Provides by Health Care Equipment & Services Companies

The numerous works carried out have allowed them to develop in-depth experiences in the design and construction of hospital sectors with a high concentration of technology, such as image departments, operating blocks, intensive care and conventional radiotherapy.

Space distribution and standard furnishings of a hospital room

Among the minimum supplies of furniture components for hospital wards are prescribed beds, cradles for babies and fixed sanitary furnishings for the toilets. Configurations can be single – stay or multiple-stay.

In the latter case, when creating a Hospital Design Plan, it is also necessary to provide dividing elements capable of separating the patients, without preventing the staff from having the whole situation under control. Furthermore, the size and the arrangement of the furnishings change if the user is disabled and needs to move with a wheelchair.

In addition, the facilities vary for the resuscitation and intensive care areas, in which a different type of bed is expected.

In fact, the medical and paramedical staff must be in a position to be able to follow the other patients while assisting one in particular. The rooms can also be arranged with more than four beds.

When designing these areas, it must be taken into account that the patient is bedridden, continuously monitored and connected to life support equipment, hooked to a bed head channel and ceiling.

Large plant equipment requires an increase in surfaces and heights. Furthermore, access to the rooms is limited by aseptic measures and can also include filter areas in which to dress.

In the hospitalization areas connected to the birth block, in addition to the standard equipment, an additional provision of space is also required to favour the rooming-in of new-borns.

In standard hospital rooms with a single bed, adequate space must be provided for the presence of a second bed or a sofa bed in which an accompanying person can sleep. This is especially essential in pediatric wards. Consult Health Care Equipment & Services Companies to get an appropriate Hospital Building Plan designed as per your requirements.

In addition to the hospital bed, a hospital room must be equipped with wardrobes and bedside tables that can be fixed through the internal partitions or furniture of industrial production.

Furthermore, suitable separating elements must also be provided between one bed and another which can be both simple separation curtains and real closing elements. In the second case, natural light must also be provided to the bed furthest from the window.

For the purposes of privacy, the entrance area to the room should be structured in such a way as to shield the patient from the gaze of passers-by in the corridors with the door open, while always ensuring the transitability of vehicles on wheels (stretchers and chairs).

It is considered necessary to allow a personalization of the space, guaranteeing a greater similarity of the elements of domestic furniture, also in consideration of the fact that these spaces are intended for people who have greater difficulty in adapting to new environments.

Must-Know Concepts for Avoiding Failure in Hospital Building Plan

The Hospital Building Plan is an important element of patient health, comfort and well-being. For example, installing a special hand washing area near the entrance to the patient room with the aim of improving hygiene and thus reducing infection cases.

 Proper lighting and layout reduces potential distractions during drug preparation to help prevent healthcare workers from making medication errors. Well-placed handrails, room to limit clutter, and floor materials that reduce slippage and unevenness will help prevent the patient from falling.

In addition, there are additional design approaches followed by Health Care Equipment & Services Companies to reduce patient stress and pain levels, and create safer and more hygienic spaces and healing spaces. By following the below written recommendations, you can make your hospital more flexible and beneficial for your patients. Let’s start!

Spaces and paths

The distribution of the beds in a hospital room must allow the patient to be transferred from the bed to the stretcher or wheelchair, or allow the presence of the cradle in the maternity wards (rooming-in). It must also be possible to guarantee the movement in the room of all types of trolleys.

In orthopedic wards, the size of the room must provide suitable spaces to accommodate the traction equipment and to allow the movement of people with significant motor disabilities.

The finishes

In general and compatibly with cleaning needs, natural and environmentally friendly materials are recommended to ensure a healthy living microclimate.

Horizontal Partitions Floors

Floors must meet the needs of resisting the intensity of the transport flows of materials and people and the aggressive action of cleaning and disinfection products. They must be perfectly smooth, waterproof and antistatic. Joints in slab or tile flooring must be sealed in order to reduce the possibility of the settlement of pathogenic germs.

Internal Vertical Partitions- Wall Cladding

Interior wall claddings must meet hygiene, appearance and equipment requirements. In rooms with a significant load of medicinal technologies (surgical hospitalizations, resuscitation and intensive care, infectious, etc.) the walls must be able to house the implants in order for them to be easily inspected and maintained.

The joints between the panels of the vertical partition must be perfectly sealed. Furthermore, they must ensure an adequate level of sound insulation between adjacent rooms. The use of modular systems allows you to insert transparent elements that allow introspection towards environments that may require continuous supervision by the healthcare staff.

Horizontal partitions – Ceilings

The treatment of the ceilings is, as a rule, solved by means of false ceilings in order to allow the passage of technological and medical systems to accommodate the lighting devices. The elements that make up the false ceilings must be removable for inspection and maintenance, must guarantee acoustic comfort and must be certified for fire prevention purposes.

In the design of the false ceiling, in order not to overwhelm the patient, neutral solutions are recommended, even coloured ones, which avoid the use of repetitive geometric elements.

Carefully designed spaces within a healthcare facility can affect a patient’s recovery rate, reduce length of stay, and even affect how well a good night’s sleep is, and this is the reason why hospital owners must hire Hospital Designers in India.

The Humanization Of Medicine And The Architecture Of Hospitals

At the end of the last century there was a debate on the commercialization of medicine and how it treated patients as mere numbers. When deciding who deserves a transplant, conditions or life expectancy did not matter, the coverage of the patient’s insurance policy mattered.

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Business photo created by wavebreakmedia_micro at freepik

This made people start talking about the humanization of medicine. At first, it was thought that it was enough to just offer more personalized care to patients, but over time the concept has evolved and encompasses many more aspects, such as the architecture of hospitals, which is essential to guarantee vital space and privacy of each patient.

The humanization of medicine has generated many changes in terms of the structure and distribution of hospitals, causing hospital architects to start looking for ways to better manage space.

The first thing to achieve this objective is to define the relationship between the humanization of medicine and the architecture of hospitals. In this sense, when speaking of humanization it is always related to dignity and the need to protect the rights of each person who lives in society.

In a hospital, the fundamental rights of each patient would be life and privacy, as well as being housed in habitable conditions.

So, when creating a hospital, the patient should be considered as the protagonist of the place beyond the complex medical equipment that may be available, and this is why you should contact healthcare architecture firms in India.

A hospital is one of the most complex buildings that we can find. Its design is closely related to its proper functioning and, consequently, its safety: a well-designed hospital is, in all probability, safer.

Thus, the main objective of hospital architecture should be to optimize the design so that the hospital is as safe, efficient and intelligent as possible.

Evolution of architecture in hospitals

Later it was discovered that some diseases were much more contagious and lethal than others, which caused the architecture of hospitals to change drastically for the first time to generate specific spaces for each type of patient.

This is how maternity areas, intensive therapy and even the emergency area were born.

In the new millennium, certain aspects were improved to create analysis areas and even special campuses to hospitalize patients with chronic conditions.

With regard to guaranteeing the privacy and the right to life of each patient, the architecture of the hospitals has perfectly complied with the requirements of these 8 new premises that currently require hospital space planning design to have spaces dedicated especially to:

  1. Healing environments training
  2. Evidence-based architectural design
  3. Construction sustainability and profitability
  4. Construction quality certifications
  5. Patient safety on site
  6. Infection control
  7. Incorporation of cutting-edge technologies
  8. Communication

But humans are dissatisfied and above all ambitious, so we are always thinking of new ways to make our lives easier, so that the humanization of medicine still has many challenges to face in the future, such as the sectorization of health by creating expensive treatments that are only available to the wealthiest.