Biomedical Equipment Donations Combined With Training Lead to Sustainability

Nov 09, 2023

By Charles Redding

Medical equipment is essential for safe and effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation. It is vital for healthcare facilities to have functioning medical equipment that is safe, reliable, and available for diagnostic procedures, therapy, treatment, and monitoring of patients.

However, there continues to be a significant gap in the availability of quality, functional biomedical equipment in the developing world and marginalized communities in the U.S. When medical equipment breaks down, it often stays broken. There are typically supply chain issues when trying to access replacement parts, and local technical expertise is scarce.

Even when the equipment isn't broken, it may not be useful. In some cases, the donated equipment needs voltage that is incompatible with the facility's electrical supply (if it's available and consistent) in the recipient country. In some cases, the equipment itself may work, but the supplies needed to make it work may have run out or there is a lack of tools to properly maintain the equipment. I have also noticed that there is often a mismatch between the equipment donated and the capacity of the healthcare facility to actually use the equipment. What good is a CT-Scan when you donate it to a facility that has no healthcare workers with training to use it or steady electricity to keep it in operation?

It is true that donations of medical equipment can improve access to quality healthcare and health outcomes by allowing for some of the surplus from high resource settings to be passed to low resource settings. However, if poorly executed, donations could turn into a burden for the recipient, wasting an enormous amount of money, human resources and time, with long term implications of crippled healthcare systems and amassing environmental burden.

MedShare recently donated a set of very high-quality electric beds donated by Hill-Rom to a remote community hospital in Ecuador. Almost immediately we received word that the beds were "inoperable." Our biomedical engineer was on a plane shortly afterwards to help address the issue with a very disgruntled recipient. Upon his arrival, and to his surprise, he noticed that the beds had not been plugged into an electrical outlet. The hospital was not used to electric beds. They had only received beds that had to be manually cranked and were not aware of the functionality of these automated beds.

Unfortunately, all too often we hear of similar stories or stories of equipment sitting idle because there are no spare parts or the tools to properly diagnose and/or repair the equipment. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the medical equipment in developing countries is donated. However, the amount of this equipment that is functional ranges from 40–60 percent. Meanwhile, in high-income countries, less than 1 percent of medical equipment is out of service. These problems can be solved. Hospitals need trained biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs) to maintain and repair medical equipment to keep it in working order. BMETs also install new equipment and train hospital staff on how to correctly use equipment. With specialized training in healthcare technology management, BMETs provide a sustainable solution to keeping medical equipment functional.

To address the dilemma of donated medical equipment sitting idle in healthcare facilities, MedShare invests significant time and resources to ensure that we provide the safest and highest quality medical equipment to our recipients. MedShare's Biomedical Equipment Training & Repair Service focuses on providing quality, functional medical equipment — including biomedical engineering training — to those in need. We focus on the principles of quality donations and sustainability to include:

As medical technology becomes increasingly complicated to operate and repair, the need for highly trained medical technicians is fundamental for hospitals and clinics worldwide. MedShare's Biomedical Equipment Training & Repair Service has an immediate and significant impact on strengthening and sustaining global health systems. Our team of professionally trained biomedical engineers and technicians service all medical equipment before delivery and work closely with equipment manufacturing partners such as Philips and local universities in metro Atlanta and San Francisco to provide hands-on training to over 2,500 students enrolled in Georgia and California technical institutions.

Additionally, we send biomedical engineers to various countries to provide pre-assessments and hands-on training to end-users, engineers, technicians and healthcare professionals. MedShare has trained over 7,000 engineers, technicians and end-users on how to properly repair and maintain biomedical equipment.

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For more information contact us at [email protected].