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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Health Serv.
Sec. Health Policy and Management
Volume 4 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frhs.2024.1470234
This article is part of the Research Topic Perspectives and Opinions in Health Services, Volume II View all 4 articles

Medical Equipment Availability, Functionality and associated Barriers at Comprehensive Specialized Public Health Hospitals in Ethiopia: The Case of Comprehensive Specialized Hospitals in Amhara Region

Provisionally accepted
Abibo Wondie Mekonen Abibo Wondie Mekonen 1*Alem Endehaw Weldeyohanes Alem Endehaw Weldeyohanes 1Nigatu Mihretu Molla Nigatu Mihretu Molla 2Abraham Wondimu Dagne Abraham Wondimu Dagne 1
  • 1 University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
  • 2 Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Public healthcare practices, particularly disease prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of patients, heavily rely on the availability and functionality of medical equipment. The absence of sufficient medical equipment and the malfunctioning of existing equipment impede the ability to provide effective health care services and directly affect patient's rehabilitation, while challenges related to medical equipment utilization are very huge, especially in countries with limited resources like Ethiopia. Therefore, this study was aimed at assessing the availability, functionality and barriers associated with the use of medical equipment at public, comprehensive, specialized hospitals in Amhara Regional State, Ethiopia. The study revealed that the availability of medical equipment in at least one hospital was 55.93% on average, and the availability of at least one piece of medical equipment in the surveyed hospitals was only about 25.6%. The overall functional status of medical equipment was 74.68%. The present study also indicated that 75% of the surveyed facility's biomedical engineers didn't obtain on-the-job training regularly. From the surveyed facilities, only 1 out of 8 hospitals has spare parts and accessories for their medical equipment, and in the majority (87.5%) of the facilities, medical equipment storage space was not enough and they didn't use medical equipment policies. The qualitative findings of this study showed that issues with the utilization of the medical equipment management information system, a lack of spare parts and accessories, the absence of a well-equipped and standardized maintenance workshop, and insufficient operator training were the major challenges.This study generally revealed critical deficiencies in medical equipment availability, functionality, and barriers to maintenance at the surveyed facilities. Therefore, to improve healthcare service delivery, collaborative efforts and targeted interventions are essential in optimizing the availability and functionality of medical equipment at each and every health facility.

    Keywords: Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Availability,, utilization, Medical equipment, Amhara Region.

    Received: 25 Jul 2024; Accepted: 03 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mekonen, Weldeyohanes, Molla and Dagne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Abibo Wondie Mekonen, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.