Indexes for Health Technology Assessment Two Case Studies: Computer Tomography Scan and Linear Accelerator

The Computed Tomography Service (CTS) of the National Institute of Pediatrics from Mexico, currently has a 64-slice CT-scan acquired in 2010. The equipment will be soon obsolete since the supplier will no longer provide technical support. In 2020 the CT-scan was evaluated, as well as the productivity of the CTS. Likewise, the Pediatric Radiotherapy Service (SRP) has a linear accelerator old than ten years and is also closed to becoming obsolete due to lack of technical support from the supplier. In 2019, the productivity of the SRP was evaluated as part of an investment project to acquire a new linear accelerator. In both studies, a set of variables and indicators was defined to evaluate different aspects of these two medical equipment. Therefore, the objective of this work was to show that the subset of variables and indicators defined for two devices with different purposes: diagnostic (CT-scan) and therapeutic (linear accelerator), are useful to evaluate any type of medical device. It was defined eight variables and a technical indicator (IT). The IT was applied in both medical equipment allowed knowing their technical state and suggesting a period to replace them. In both cases, it is observed that the results are consistent, since they are more than 10 years old, and during the year 2022 they will no longer have technical support from the provider. This scenario makes both the CT-scan and the linear accelerator obsolete equipment. Both equipment should be replaced in the short term.