Many hospitals operate several unrelated systems for recording medical equipment items. These are maintained usually by both the EBME and Finance Departments. Medical equipment is procured by various means, including direct purchase, rent, lease, loan and consumables based arrangements and is also maintained in many different ways. Frequently an audit reveals significant differences between the paper records and the medical equipment physically in the hospital. Even where individual items are tagged there is often a paper-based system for recording the data making it extremely difficult to analyse this most important asset register.

United Healthcare has the expertise and resources to carry out equipment audits from simple accurate asset logging to full condition surveys for use when transferring assets to new sites or Management.

United Healthcare provides a service able to audit the inventory of an entire hospital or a single department, presenting the results in a variety of electronic formats allowing for flexible reporting.

If required United Healthcare can use this data to:

• Reconcile the various equipment data bases
• Identify duplicate, surplus and no longer required items
• Analyse the most cost effective maintenance arrangements
• Analyse equipment leases and recommend cost savings
• Make proposals for disposal of inappropriate equipment
• Identify opportunities for low cost upgrades
• Introduce systems to ensure records are automatically updated
• Make proposals for Managed Equipment Services including payment related performance

This service is of particular value to NHS Trusts who are considering inviting tenders for Managed Equipment Services since accuracy of the tender data is essential to ensure there are no equipment shortfalls which have to be accommodated once the contract has commenced.

PFI Consortia, bidding for major hospital developments, can also benefit from asset audit and analysis as part of their winning bid strategies. Organisations who achieve preferred bidder status for PFI Hospital projects and/or Managed Equipment Service ("MES") also need asset audits and analysis as part of the due diligence exercise required by their financiers.