Assessment of Availability and Utilization of Medical Equipment’s in Nekemte Specialized Hospital, August, 2021

: Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the availability and utilization of medical equipment in Nekemte Specialized Hospital (NSH). Methods and Materials: A retrospective cross-sectional study design was employed. Adapted and pre-tested structured English version checklist for availability and utilization of medical equipment, document review and an in-depth interview were used for data collection. Data were collected by observation of availability of the medical equipment and interviewing selected professionals for utilization of capital item medical equipment. Microsoft excel 2013 was used for data analysis. Descriptive analysis was made to determine the availability and functional status of medical devices and qualitative part were thematically analysed. Results: This finding showed that about 60.4% (209) of medical equipment are available from the total required quantity of 348 which account only 45 (37.2%) of them were items. Among the available 209 medical equipment’s about 84.67% of them are functional and 15.33% of them were non-functional during the assessment. Besides, the Donated equipment accounts 45%. From eight-capital item three of them were properly utilized with utilization coefficient of 81.4%, 100% and 100.0% while the rest five were underutilized with utilization coefficient of 2.5%, 5.77%, 9.2% and 0%. Conclusion and Recommendation: The hospital lacks valuable, advanced and specialized medical equipment that are needed for diagnosis and treatment. Medical equipment fails due to lack of training for user, infrastructure problem like power surge and hard water, and misuse. Training that improves skill of the user and technicians should be given.