Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Feb 22: The Health and Medical Education (H&ME) Department has ordered the formation of Hospital Equipment Management Committees (HEMCs) in the Community Health Centres (CHCs) as well as District Hospitals (DHs) across J&K.
The step, at large, is aimed at ensuring that the equipment available across the peripheral healthcare setup runs seamlessly for effective patient care and that timely action is taken wherever necessary.
In this regard, H&ME has sanctioned the constitution of HEMCs with 5 members for equipment audit and preventive maintenance at healthcare facilities across the Union Territory.
The tasks which have been given to these committees are that they will receive proposals for procurement, induction of new equipment from the respective departments and evaluate the same “and the justification provided after need analysis and cost-benefit analysis.”
The HEMCs will also be responsible for the receipt, installation & commissioning of new equipment at the hospital as well as the training of the user staff in operation along with the maintenance of the equipment.
The committees, H&ME said, will also ensure preparation of Equipment Master Maintenance Plan consisting of scheduled preventive maintenance and calibration of the equipment.
HEMCs which will have members including facility in-charge, the senior-most consultant, Dy. MS or Medical Officer, Stores or Senior-most MO, and others as per availability at the CHC/DH.
As per the directives issued, these committees will also undertake a review of equipment inventory (Equipment census) available and their utilization once a year and will also list out functional, dysfunctional, and repairable or BER equipment.
The HEMCs will further carry out equipment audit and review the asset base with the addition of new equipment and its valuation, deletion of BER/condemned equipment from the asset base.
H&ME stated that the HEMCs will be “Monitoring the activities of the maintenance service provider (in PPP), complaint management, equipment downtime, and ensuring preventive maintenance & calibration are carried out as per the OEM recommendations.”
As a part of the larger role, these committees in the CHCs and DHs will monitor the weeding out of the old, obsolete equipment declared beyond economic repairs and recommend proposals for condemnation to the MD NHM.
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