An Event‐Tree‐Based Mathematical Formula for The Removal of Biomedical Equipment From a Hospital Inventory

This paper proposes a mathematical model that guarantees a warning in an informatic system when a piece of medical equipment requires maintenance or replacement. This mathematical formula was obtained by using an event tree. The retirement of equipment from a hospital inventory was proposed as a final and undesirable event. If the final event is less than 1, the equipment is not retired from the inventory. This result was obtained by collecting data from 1000 high performance pieces of equipment in 4 hospitals. In 97.5 % of them, the final event was lower than 1. Over 800 pieces of equipment with different performance problems were chosen. In 95.6 % of them the final event was higher than 1. By implementing this model, a 10 % saving of the total cost of maintaining a hospital's medical equipment was obtained.