Up to Date Inventory System for Effective Management of Healthcare Technology: Case Study in Jimma University Specialized Hospital (JUSH)

Abstract

The tradition of healthcare technology management in our country, Ethiopia, is one of the big problems affecting the quality of healthcare practices as well as the financial expenditure in different health institutions. This is because there is no up to date system showing the status of healthcare technology and the information of the healthcare technology available in each specific healthcare setting. Even though some hospital use file based (paper based) inventory system to manage healthcare technology, it is not up to date and difficult to access the history of each healthcare technology using this system. The objective of this project is to replace manual inventory in different hospitals by taking Jimma University specialized hospital (JUSH) as a reference by implementing web based inventory system. Supervision made in JUSH indicates that, currently the hospital is using excel based medical equipment inventory system and looking for advanced system. So based on the objective of this research up to date inventory system is developed using PHP programming language and Apache server. The sample inventory data from the hospital is added to the system for testing and the test was successful as it helps the user perform each tasks i.e. adding inventory, displaying equipment details, searching for specific equipment and updating each equipment as desired.Finally even though the system is designed for Jimma university specialized hospital, other hospitals in our country can use thissystem to effectivelymanage their healthcare technology assets for better health practice