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Assessment of the Maintenance Management in Hospitals of the Ecuadorian Institute of Social security of Zona 3 of Ecuador

Abstract:

The hospital infrastructure failures have an inestimable impact because they put human lives at stake. Therefore, potential risks contributing to the failure of medical equipment and hospital infrastructure must be identified, reduced or eliminated. The maintenance and its management constitute a tool that ensures the equipment performance. The aim of this work was to obtain quantitative data of the maintenance management at the hospitals of Zone 3 of the Ecuadorian Social Security system. The methodology consists of five phases: selection of assessment criteria, weighting of criteria, development of the assessment instrument, validation of the instrument by applying it to the four hospitals of Zone 3 in Ecuador and, at last, identification of low-performing aspects. Results demonstrate that the maintenance management of the hospitals in Zone 3 reached a quantitative average value of 55.5/100 points. There are structural deficiencies that compromise the achievement of the maintenance department goals in three hospitals, yet there are viable processes that can be implemented to overcome such deficiencies and increase the level of fulfillment of requirements. It is concluded that the planning, programming and control of maintenance is the criterion with more potential to be improved.