SYSTEMS ENGINEERING APPROACHES FOR IMPROVING REUSABLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT REPROCESSING PROCESSES

James C. Benneyan () and Claire Bond ()
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James C. Benneyan: Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
Claire Bond: Healthcare Systems Engineering Institute, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA

International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), 2013, vol. 10, issue 03, 1-22

Abstract: Hospital reusable medical equipment (RME) includes any items that are intended to be reprocessed and reused indefinitely, including surgical instruments, dental equipment, endoscopes, and others. Such equipment represent a significant portion of a hospital's inventory costs and recently have generated significant patient cross-contamination concerns due to reprocessing cleaning failures. This paper discusses recent applications of industrial and systems engineering (ISyE) methods within healthcare organizations to help manage, understand, and improve RME processes, including quality control (QC), reliability, patient safety, facility layout, queuing networks, and inventory management models. Several examples demonstrate the value of these approaches for improved reprocessing management of RME technology.

Keywords: RME; safety; queuing networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1142/S0219877013400099

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