Medical Equipment Aging: Part III—An Aging Model for Maintenance and Replacement Plannings

The first article of this series demonstrated that some medical equipment exhibits clear, progressive deterioration with age, whereas some others do not. The second article showed that although most equipment remains safely and reliably deployed well over its respective depreciation period and the end-of-life or end-of-support dates declared by the respective manufacturers, some equipment needs to be replaced sooner. Because it is not practical to wait for the collection and analysis of large amounts of data to better plan for maintenance and replacement, a simple, quantitative model for equipment aging is introduced in this article to help improve both types of planning. The model was tested on professionals not directly involved in its formulation and applied to 34 equipment types. The results show this aging model can be used by professionals experienced in medical equipment maintenance and management, with only some basic instructions. Furthermore, it can be used to update the traditional “risk-based criteria” for planned maintenance and turning it into a risk management method fully compliant with the ISO 14971 standard.