Computerised Maintenance Management Systems (CMMS) for healthcare is ultimately a tool to manage medical assets, devices, and equipment. Ensuring reliability, compliance, and patient safety in clinics and hospitals.
What is CMMS Software for Healthcare?
A computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) solution is used to manage asset management. CMMS enables healthcare organisations to get an overview of responsibilities of assets, planned maintenance, service requests, documentation on assets within hospitals, clinics, and service organisations.
CMMS that is made for healthcare has a greater understanding of the benefits and challenges of managing assets in the healthcare segment. A purpose-built CMMS for healthcare has to goal of maximizing the focus on preventive maintenance, increasing lifespan of medical devices, and ease regulatory compliance requirements.
Who is Healthcare CMMS Software Made for?
CMMS made for healthcare is aimed to be used by hospitals, healthcare institutions, clinics, home care providers, MedTech manufactures, and service companies.
The main target group of CMMS software in healthcare is clinical engineering, IT, radiology, lab, dental, home care, administration such as finance, and many others.
Why is CMMS Compliance in Healthcare Important?
CMMS plays an important role managing preventive maintenance of all medical equipment, reducing the potential risk of equipment failure, and providing analytics.
Compared to various other industries, in the healthcare industry it is crucial that all medical equipment, assets, and devices are maintained in an excellent condition to ensure patient safety. Especially, high risk and high device class medical equipment, such as defibrillators and ventilators, must follow strict maintenance procedures.
Depending on your location there are various compliance that needs to be followed such as: Global medical device nomenclature (GMDN), European database on medical devices (EUDAMED), European medical device regulation (MDR), and unique device identification (UDI).
What functionality does Healthcare CMMS have?
Healthcare CMMS software solutions has functionality used to comply with regulatory compliance and manage medical assets. CMMS functionality is different between software solution, but in general these exist:
- Asset management and registry. All medical device related information: manufacturer, model, class, type, codes, associated costs, location, downtime, documentation, and more that fits the organisation’s needs.
- Work orders (WO). Tasks related to medical devices: description, priority, type of work need, supply need, and assigned personnel.
- Preventive Maintenance (PM). Automatic maintenance scheduling based on warranty, procedures, or time.
- Reporting and analytics. Some CMMS solutions offer analytics and reporting functionality related to the asset registry, work orders, and preventive maintenance.
What are the CMMS Benefits for Healthcare?
There are multiple benefits of using a healthcare CMMS solution, especially the larger the healthcare organisation is. A CMMS solution is not limited to healthcare providers but is also beneficial for service providers. Here are a few benefits for healthcare and service organisations:
- Asset management of all the medical devices in one or across multiple facilities/locations.
- Maintenance management, including centralised device and maintenance information and operations.
- Easy access to equipment inventories, work orders, preventive maintenance performed, history, warranty, and more.
- Maintenance tracking and reporting of all medical assets.
- Streamlining workflows and decreasing downtime.
- Dashboards and reports can be generated by some CMMS solutions, which will help policymakers and easily quantify workloads for the clinical engineering team.
- May be accessible through a mobile application, allowing you to access information without returning to a computer.
- Ensuring patient safety.
- Regulatory compliance of medical devices.
We have created an entire list of CMMS benefits in healthcare that expands upon these mentioned benefits and many others.
What are the Healthcare CMMS Implementation phases?
Although all projects vary, here are the general implementation phases of a CMMS solution:
Step 1: Evaluation
Conduct a feasibility study and assess the need for a CMMS. Discuss the specific requirements your service or healthcare organisation has.
The evaluation step is incredibly important for the organisations. Therefore, we made a dedicated section of things to look for in a healthcare CMMS that is presented later in the article.
Step 2: Selection
Once the evaluation is completed you will need to find a CMMS solution that fits your needs. CMMS suppliers can heavily vary in the features they deliver. You will also need to consider if you will use open source, commercial, or developed software. Contact potential suppliers.
Step 3: Data Collection
Now is the time to gather all available information and data that is needed to implement the CMMS solution. It is likely the healthcare organisation already has this available, but information from sources outside the organisation may be needed.
Step 4: Installation
If an on-premise solution is chosen, the CMMS solution is installed at the healthcare organisation or facility. If a cloud solution is chosen, a personalised environment for the organisation will be created. Appropriate personnel will be assigned to help with the installation phase, such as clinical engineering and system administrators.
Step 5: Configuration & Customisation
If needed, the solution will be configured to fit the organisations existing procedures such as workflows and security. Technical system customisation may be needed to meet the requirements set by the service or healthcare organisation.
Step 6: Data Entry
Now is the time to move data from an existing system or paperwork into the CMMS solution. Most projects include equipment information (codes, warranty, and classifications), user security (access and passwords).
Clinical Engineers should be involved in this phase, as they often understand the data. If a commercial supplier is involved, they might ensure the data is inserted without failure and provide guidance.
Step 7: Training
Ensure that all users are familiar with the CMMS solutions and its features. Some commercial suppliers have detailed manuals and support channels.
Step 8 – Final: Deployment and monitoring.
Now the solution is in use. Continuous monitoring will be needed to ensure it is maintained and running effectively. A continuous dialog should be had with the commercial supplier to discuss the roadmap, and upcoming versions and features.
What is the Difference Between CMMS and EAM Software Solutions?
Enterprise asset management (EAM) and CMMS are similar, however an EAM solution has all the features of an CMMS solution, while a CMMS does not have all the features of an EAM.
Depending on size and budget it may be worthwhile to consider implementing an EAM solution as it contains all the features of a CMMS solution.
With an EAM solution, you will have the ability to get additional features and integrations in the future. With just an CMMS solution, there could be a limitation on expanding the CMMS software functionality in the future.
The cost difference between EAM and CMMS is often minimal. Consider reaching out to the supplier to learn more about their services and related costs.
7 Things to Look for in Healthcare CMMS
When searching for a CMMS supplier has an organisation within the healthcare segment, you want to find a software solution that fits your specific needs. You want to consider the following questions before you make your purchase:
1. Does the CMMS software solution match the needs in the healthcare segment?
There are many CMMS solutions out there, however not all are made for the healthcare segment. This is important as healthcare organisations face different challenges compared to other industries.
As we mentioned, depending on your location, there will be a need to follow regulatory compliance such as GMDN, EUDAMED, MDR, and UDI.
2. Is the supplier continuously improving their CMMS software?
Of course, it is important that the CMMS software solution matches your needs when you first start using it. However, as the healthcare industry develops, so will your needs.
Therefore, it is important that you find a supplier that is continuously innovating and developing their CMMS solution. Not all suppliers do this.
3. Is the pricing model scalable and within the budget allowance?
The latter part of the question is obvious, but the first part is worth considering if you want a long-term solution. The CMMS software solution needs to be able to expand (or diminish) with regards to your organisations size and demand. Larger organisation means higher maintenance needs.
You want to know how the supplier sets their pricing model. For example, additional licenses may need to be purchases to accommodate an increasing number of users. If you have an on-premise solution, you may need to purchase additional hardware in order to manage the increasing load on the server, while also expanding the server space to allow for a larger database.
4. Does the supplier have well-rounded technical support?
Having access to technical support for a CMMS healthcare solution is one of the most valuable services a supplier can offer. As a customer, it is important for you to understand how the supplier manages support and if any fees are involved. Some CMMS software solution suppliers do not have any support, and some have a prolonged response time.
5. Will the supplier provide quality training and material?
Proper training is the key to ensure that the healthcare CMMS software solution provides the benefits mentioned previously in the article.
CMMS Suppliers do their utmost to ensure the software is easy to use for all end-users. However, CMMS in the healthcare segment can get complicated in areas. This is due to the need to meet regulatory compliance and ensure patient safety. Additional documentation on medical equipment may be needed. Each healthcare organisation operates differently, so how complicated the CMMS software solution needs to be depends on the organisation in question.
Check with the supplier if they have video tutorials that can be accessed on demand, provide webinars, have detailed documentation that you can access, and other useful material that can help you benefit the most from the healthcare CMMS software solution.
6. What are the available deployment options?
You will need to consider if you want a CMMS that will be deployed locally (on-premise) or cloud. It is also worth considering if you want the healthcare CMMS software to be accessible on your mobile phone.
7. Can you transfer the data?
If you are moving from one CMMS software to another, ensure you can extract data from the current CMMS and import it into the new CMMS software. In almost all cases, the data needs to be prepared, through adjustments and relabelling, to be able to be properly entered into the new CMMS software solution.
All customers and needs are unique; therefore, it is important for suppliers to be flexible and adapt to what the healthcare organisation and project needs. At SoftPro Medical Solutions, we have a consulting team that helps our customers to prepare the data into our software solution.
Summary
CMMS software solution is an asset management tool that has functionality related to asset registry, WO, PM, and analytics and reporting. CMMS is limited in its functionality compared to an EAM solution but may be adequate for some healthcare or service organisation.
There are numerous benefits of a CMMS/EAM solution that will ensure medical device reliability, regulatory compliance, and sustained patient safety. However, the benefits will not come by themselves.
The solution must be implemented fittingly according to the organisation’s needs, together with guidance from the supplier.
How Could A Medical Asset & Maintenance Management Software Fit Into Your Organisation?
If you found this article relevant for your healthcare organisation and seem to need an asset management software solution, feel free to reach out to us. We are happy to discuss your needs to see if we might be a solution for your needs or at least guide you forward. It is entirely free, and we can provide a personalised demo to fit your healthcare environment (also free).
Our asset management software solution is managing more than 15 million daily in over 400 hospitals. We have more than 23 years of experience in the healthcare segment, and we are continuously developing our solutions to meet current and future needs within the healthcare industry.
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