Reliability analysis of hospital infusion pumps: a case study.

Abstract

Background: Infusion pumps (IPs) are medical devices used for the continuous and precise delivery of medications or nutrients. Their use has expanded and is now widespread in emergency rooms, ICUs, pediatrics, and other hospital departments. Failures in IPs can lead to adverse events, compromising patient health. In addition to the risks to patients, IPs are the medical devices most frequently associated with reports of adverse events in Brazil, highlighting the need to monitor their operational conditions to minimize failures during use.

Results: Thus, the objective of this research is to analyze the reliability of infusion pumps (IPs) in a Brazilian hospital using an internal database from Clinical Engineering software. Probability distributions for repair time and time between failures were modeled, and parameters such as reliability and availability were calculated, with a focus on investigating hospital departments with recurring failures.

Conclusion: In evaluating the operating equipment, a lack of detail in failure notes and service order openings was observed, which can hinder maintenance planning. The longest repair times were recorded in the ICU (Neurology), which houses the majority of IPs. Graphical analysis and testing demonstrated that the Weibull distribution effectively models both time between failures and repair time. The IP A model showed better results in terms of availability and reliability, thereby improving the security of the IPs.