Obsolescence Assessment Approach: Case of Mechanical Ventilators Under the Covid-19 Environment

ABSTRACT

Support treatment for patients with severe Covid19 symptoms is based on mechanical ventilation. As a result of the spread of the coronavirus, various medical institutions found it necessary to acquire more mechanical ventilators, causing an increase in the demand for their production. The production, distribution, and use conditions present a potential medium- and long-term risk concerning the equipment’s operation, safety, and effectiveness. In the face of the pandemic, the care that must be implemented to guarantee patient safety, the effectiveness of the equipment, and the quality of care, should be a high priority. This paper presents a first approach to analyzing the causes that can lead to a potential state of obsolescence in mechanical ventilators used to care for patients with Covid19. We collected information about mechanical ventilators, identified the factors that may cause a failure in the device, applied Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis for three possible outcomes, and compared the results with the expert opinion of clinical engineers. We found a total of 30 factors and classified them into associated, operation, and external concerning the ventilator. The results show that the factors found are associated with the technical field. The knowledge of the operation of the equipment’s subsystems and familiarity with its components is essential. The contrast with the expert opinion and the non-inclusion of factors such as the economic ones led to the development of more in-depth work on this topic. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.