Evaluation Of Radiological Equipment Management In A Tertiary Institution In Nigeria

Radiological Equipment Maintenance (REM) has been described as an integral component of Quality Assurance (QA) for the Radiological Equipments (REs). This is vital as it keeps the RE in optimum condition to aid clinicians in diagnosis.

The University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu, which is a tertiary health institution centrally located to attend to the health needs of the masses especially in the South-East and South-South regions of Nigeria was understudied as a result of the reports of equipment malfunction and frequent breakdown.

Questionnaire was constructed in line with the objectives of this work, and distributed to radiographers in the institute under study.

The findings of this research reveals the total absence of a Quality Assurance Committee (QAC), 90.1% of the respondents reported that the only kind of technical attention given to the REs is repair, only 18.2% of the respondents hold themselves responsible for REM while others believe it is the duty of other hospital personnel. 54.5% of the respondents reported that their REs break down seldom while 45.5% of the respondents reports a quite often break down of the REs. The research also observed that the main reason for the procurement of a RE is break down of that RE.

The findings of this study reveals the awareness of the end user to REM, the pattern of REM applied in the institution and other contributory factors to the occurrence of broken down REs.

 

 

 

Chapter one

Chapter two

Chapter three; Research methodology

Chapter five;

Summary, conclusion, recommendation, limitations and area of further study.

Radiology according to Dryo1 is the branch of medicine that uses ionizing radiation for diagnosis and theraupy. These forms of radiation are produced by specific radiological equipment which can be grouped into ionizing radiation and non-ionizing radiation producing equipment. The first group includes the conventional x-ray equipment, fluoroscopy, computed tomography, mammography etc. The second group includes ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging, etc.

Today, all healthcare delivery systems are very much technology dependent and virtually no medical intervention can take place without recourse to technology or precisely medical equipments and devices.2

The frequent down time of equipments due to poor management of those equipments or nonchalancy of attitude is a huge risk to efficient health care delivery. A visit to most of our tertiary institutions reveals for itself the countless numbers of equipments that lie idle majorly as a result of breakdown. In the Sub-Saharan Africa region, for example, a large proportion (up to 70 per cent) of equipment lies idle due to mismanagement of the technology acquisition process, lack of user-training and lack of effective technical support4 .

It is against the above background that the need for the evaluation of the management of radiological equipment was hatched, because of its pivotal role in patients’ diagnosis and treatment.