Design and implementation of a smart device for real-time medical equipment inventory record management

Abstract

The effectiveness of medical equipment management is crucial for Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) services. Inventory as one of the main aspects of HTM can lead to better clinical workflows when practiced well unless; it can result in unused or unfit equipment without a purpose resulting in the loss of resources and patients’ life. Medical equipment records in developing countries are paper-based or/and computer-based systems where records are entered with unjustified /or incomparable resources (cost and time). Apart the highlighted issues, the access of recorded data is a big problem ensuing the maintenance mismanagement. In Rwanda, the use of the Medical Equipment Management and Maintenance System (MEMMS); a sophisticated software by which updated records are entered quarterly, is an online access database that results in many questionable outcomes like records duplication and errors. Internet of Things, ATMEGA 328P, and sensors together with other electronics components simulated through Proteus and other software helped to get a monitoring device that can stream real-time data (location, temperature, working time, and alerts for maintenance and security purposes) from medical equipment at any based institution. The device sends equipment records in a web login dashboard database constructed using hypertext preprocessor (PHP), hypertext mark-up language (HTML), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), My Structured Query Language (MySQL), and Javascript. The research resulted in a designed system made by a small device linked to a web login dashboard. The monitoring device that is permanently attached to the equipment is built by various microcontroller-based sensors with push buttons and they detect and stream the equipment’s functional data. The desired real-time data are detected and are also downloadable via the login dashboard. Through the dashboard, the system can also display the equipment performance while comparing the streamed data. This new inventory system is an innovative real-time inventory as it provides medical equipment’s timely effectiveness, timely maintenance management, and optimized cost with an easy access database.