MUST developing system to track functionality of medical equipment

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT  | Mbarara University of Science and Technology is developing a system that will track and alert users about the functionality and usability of medical equipment.

Dr. Johnes Obungoloch, the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science at Technology and the head of the team developing the system says the idea of coming up with this technology will be to show the user the time the machine was last used, what it was used for, when it was last serviced and where it came from .According to Obungoloch, most of the equipment in hospitals break down shortly after they are installed.

For some equipment, he says they lie idle in hospitals because the staff are not knowledgeable on how to use it and yet sometimes equipment meant for a particular government facility will end up leaving to a private facility without knowledge of the managers.

This system, MediTrack will also be able to alert users in its database that the machine has left the hospital through the mobile phone irrespective of whether the phone is a smart or feature phone.

Sitra Mulepo, a Senior Engineer at the Ministry of Health said this comes in handy at the time when the ministry is establishing workshops in different parts of the country where hospital machinery can be repaired or serviced.

He said some of the equipment breaks down from facilities but the Ministry is never alerted to establish what could have gone wrong and the kind of interventions needed.

Currently, the system is being piloted at selected facilities to establish its effectiveness. But, Obungoloch says when it’s finally rolled out for general use, it will not track equipment that leave the country but will issue an alert for those that leave one facility to another.

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