Abstract:
In many countries worldwide, advancement in healthcare technology continues to accelerate. It is in this regards that the implementation of effective policies becomes crucial to ensure the reliability and safety of medical devices and equipment. Many developing countries are doing their level best to enhance their healthcare system. The main objective of this study is to access the effects of hospital policies on medical equipment safety and performance. To achieve its objective, this study examines different effects of policies on the medical equipment lifecycle, especially in the deployment phase, where it discusses the impact of utilization policies on training programs, user compliance, and ongoing monitoring, for the sake of mitigation of potential risks associated with medical equipment adoption. It accesses the availability and implementation of policies in different health institutions, the impact of policies implementation on the safety and performance of medical equipment, the role of clinical staff in ensuring safety and performance of medical equipment, and the positive and negative effects of those policies on medical equipment safety and o performance. This study was conducted through collecting data from four different hospitals, where the clinical staff especially medical equipment users gave responses to the questions asked. This study used random purposive sampling method to sample 60 clinical staff from 4 different hospitals. A questionnaire was used to collect data from respondents. 60 responses from respondents were retrieved and analyzed with the use of STATA Vesrion17.0 software. Some of obtained results were displayed on tables. According to the study findings, different clinical staff agreed that there are policies regarding medical equipment being implemented in their respective institutions, and these policies, together with the responsibility of medical equipment users, contribute in improving medical equipment safety and performance. This brings many effects on medical equipment safety and performance, including both positive and negative effects. This proves that the implementation of different policies regarding medical equipment in hospitals will have a great role in the improvement of medical equipment safety and performance. The study found that in Rwandan health institutions, different medical equipment users are trained about policies regarding medical equipment, and are trained about medical equipment their use in their daily work.
