Asset Reliability Management in a Medical Organization

Medical organizations need to manage the reliability of assets used in healthcare, especially high-tech organizations where technical unavailability can impact the treatment process. The management of assets is not usually included in the architecture of medical information systems (MISs), and the EAM (Enterprise Asset Management) or IAM (Intelligent Asset Management) component is not considered important or included in high priority tasks. Although there is at least one solution, SAP® i.s.h.med® hospital information system, that contains a component to support the management of assets, this solution is not specifically adapted to the needs of a medical organization. In most medical organizations, the clinical process is primary, assets are serviced outside of the treatment process, and the process of managing assets is not described in the reliability management. Thus, the task of managing the reliability of assets is not clear and needs to be elaborated for the case of a medical organization. This article concentrates on asset reliability management strategies and discusses variant of EAM systems implementation in a medical organization.