Safe blood and blood products : manual on the management, maintenance and use of blood cold chain equipment

Overview

The critical contribution that effective management and use of medical equipment brings to health service delivery is only recently gaining recognition. Managing medical equipment has often been misunderstood as the mere procurement of accessible products within a given budget. However, this narrow perspective has proven neither effective, nor cost effective in the running of health services. The World Health Organization (WHO) promotes the adoption in countries of a comprehensive life cycle approach that falls largely into the following stages: planning and decision-making (e.g. policy, needs assessment and budgeting); acquisition (including selection, procurement and donation guidelines); installation (inspection, testing, acceptance, inventories and documentation); monitoring of performance and use, including preventive maintenance, care and repair; and decommissioning.