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Introduction: Optimum management of medical equipment in hospital settings has tremendous effects on decreasing costs and providing desired health and treatment services. This research has been undertaken to design a medical equipment management model for public hospitals of Iran. Materials and Methods: In this adaptive research, medical equipment management among United States of America, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Australia, Sweden and Italy, which have successful experiences and determined patterns for medical equipment management, are assessed with respect to 6 dimensions as structure, purchase, control, maintenance, training and distribution and according to the shared strategies in the mentioned countries, a model was designed for Iran's public hospitals. This model was validated using expert's survey in DELFI method. Results: In all of the studied countries, the medical equipment engineering unit is established for effective management of medical equipments and in direction with the main purpose of ensuring safety and improving patient care, clinical engineers are being trained. Trainings are designed according to international federation course plan for clinical engineers “which are combination of necessary engineering and managing courses for activities of hospital medical equipment management”. Under study issues include: precise need assessment for medical devices, balancing, use of life span expenditure, stock management, location finding, and needed physical space prediction, selection and purchase committee establishment, entering controls plus reception test, performance and safety control, activities documentation, using computerized systems for preventive maintenance and semi-centered distribution, are among necessary processes in the medical equipment management cycle of under studied countries' hospitals. Conclusion: Management and medical equipment engineering unit establishment in hospitals, selection and purchase committee formation, continuous equipment performance control during calibration process, equipment preventive maintenance according to workforce training schedule, training needed experts, and with respect to the topics of international federation courses for clinical engineering training in universities, will improve medical equipment efficiency in hospitals.

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Background: Medical equipment improvement and tremendous expenditure is allocated costs annually, so that optimum and proper maintenance management of equipment would have outstanding effects on health and treatment of medical training and research economies of the country. Present research was implemented aiming to examine effect of the medical equipment maintenance management systems on the hospital setting expenditures. Methods and Materials: In an interventional research, the model of medical equipment maintenance management system implemented in Imam Khomeini Hospital was examined precisely and based on appropriate software for Vali-e-Asr Hospital was designed. According to the model for all available medical instruments in Vali-e-Asr hospital with usage of more than 5 years (240 medical equipment) all costs were recorded in 2006 and compared with previous year (2005). Results: There wasn't any training for medical equipment operators and for its implementation necessity on 21.7% of equipment in the installation and start up phase with for 83.7% of equipments the operator was not fixed using of medical equipment maintenance management system, the repair events decreased from 78 events in 2005 to 58 events in 2006. Vali-e-Asr hospital recorded costs for maintenance and repair of medical equipment in 2006 was 801765375 Rials(Iran)which decreased to 513212912 Rials (Iran) according to accurate calculation of costs and auditing by medical equipment engineer and shows 36% saving in expenditures by medical equipment maintenance management system. Conclusion: Medical equipment computer–based maintenance, management system implementation and also using of medical engineers potentialities in hospital are necessary.