Analysis And Investigation Of Medical Device Maintenance Errors Based On Human Factors Engineering

Purposes: To develop an evaluation indicators system of medical device maintenanceerrors and causes; then to analyze the incidence relations between errors and causes inmaintenance; finally, to propose the strategies on how to prevent or minimize the medicaldevice maintenance errors.Methods: Based on the human errors theory in human factor engineering, the grey theory，maintenance experiences of other industries, and the analytic hierarchy process(AHP), theindicators of medical device maintenance errors and their causes are designed; after theevaluations of these indicators using the expert interviews and Delphi method, the statisticsresults are analyzed;the questionnaires of medical device maintenance errors and theircauses are designed to survey the maintenance error events encountered by clinicalengineers in hospitals; the incidence relations between errors and causes in medical devicemaintenances are analyzed using grey relevance analysis; finally, based on the theory andmethod of HFACS framework, analysis of maintenance errors’ causes were done indifferent perspectives.Results:1The survey is based on the evaluation of the questionnaire by13experts, statistics of thequestionnaire show that: the overall average index score is more than8points (out of10),the Crowns Bach coefficient used to measure the reliability test are more than0.8, thevalidity testing KMO values are above0.7, the reliability and validity of the test resultsmeet the requirements;2From survey, we obtained33copy of maintenance errors and causes data, by analyzingthe data, we found that insufficient experience and knowledge, inadequate technicalinformation, training unreasonable, lacking of the necessary tools, and lacking ofcommunication and collaboration are the main causes of maintenance errors. Specific errormode with certain error cause has high correlation, such as "repair process problem" ismainly related to "unreasonable training","inadequate technical information" and "lack ofknowledge". Consequences of maintenance errors include maintenance delays, waste of financial resources, damage of maintenance tools，damage of the appearance or function ofequipment. Specific errors are significantly associated with corresponding consequences.3HFACS model is applied to the classification of the causes of errors, convenient to theanalysis of error causes from all levels. Initially confirmed by practical examples, the modelcan be applied to maintenance errors, and has the probability of using widely in further.Conclusions:1The expert survey results show that the design of the index system is reasonable, andcould represent of the errors and causes in medical equipment maintenance;2Gray theory is applied to the association analysis of the errors and causes in medicalequipment maintenance, getting the qualitative relationship between the errors and causes,reflecting the level of associated relation with the indicator.3Taking measures on personal, environmental, equipment, work plan and managementpolicy will reduce the probability of medical equipment maintenance error.