need assessment of implementing a preventive maintenance system at hospitals in isfahan, iran

introduction: in health care services, preventing problems and failures is more efficient than concentrating on correcting them. repairs are always expensive, as they require highly specialized personnel and costly spare parts. regular inspecting and servicing, using manual services and checklists, would maximize the impact of maintenance and minimize the costs. it is thus important to introduce a planned preventive maintenance (ppm) system to the hospitals. methods: this quantitative-qualitative research used a delphi survey to assess 23 medical engineers and managers at hospitals affiliated to isfahan university of medical sciences (isfahan, iran) in 2010. using interviews, the requirements were categorized into 4 groups of structural, human resources, financial, and equipments. a delphi survey was obtained according to the results. a final questionnaire based on a likert scale with a cronbach's alpha of 92% was used to collect data.  the data was then analyzed by spss. results: medical engineers and managers prioritized the requirements as structural needs (preparing appropriate organization for repairing and maintenance activity in hospitals and treatment center and cultivation of the plan in the hospitals), human resources (all management personnel should have true belief in the plan), financial needs (allocating specific budget for teaching managers and nurses), and application needs (providing a specific checklist for medical equipments). conclusion: medical engineers are definitely needed to be available in all hospitals affiliated to the university. a unit for following preventive maintenance programs, and creating sympathy and cooperation between managers and engineers is also of high importance.