Functional Requirements and Conceptual Design for a Computerized System of Traceability of Medical Equipment for Nursing

Abstract

Currently, healthcare uses very complex medical equipment, particularly for life-support. Although medical equipment helps to improve care, it is not without risks; events can occur as a result of failures, malfunction or user error. The Department of Biomedical Engineering is responsible for the management of medical equipment in Hospitals to guarantee safety and quality in patient care; nursing is not involved in this process. This paper proposes a methodology to identify the functional requirements to design a computer system, called Nursing Medical Equipment System (NMES) to support the traceability of maintenance, training and monitoring of medical equipment; to comply with one of the fourpronged approach policy concerned to medical equipment use, issued by the World Health Organization. A survey was conducted among 24 nurses from Intensive Care Units of three hospitals, from this survey and additional information provided by the Department Biomedical Engineering, the software components were designed. The conceptual design was based on the unified modeling language methodology and a three-tier architecture (client-server model) was proposed for its implementation. NMES consists of the following modules: inventory, track work order, maintenance logbook, quick reference, and technovigilance. NMES supports nursing staff to get involved in the functioning status of medical equipment, raise awareness in the nursing staff regarding the importance of having technical support from the DBE in their daily work process, in order to contribute to the continuous improvement of care delivered to patients.