Background: All countries need to consider the significance of medical equipment
in health and safety, and its significant effect on healthcare economics, medical
education, and research.
Methods: This study addressed designing a system of medical equipment
replacement using a hybrid SWOT-FANP approach, intends to increase the selfconfidence of decision-makers and owners of medical equipment and provide them
with adequate evidence and thereby, motivate the formulation of medical
equipment replacement strategies selected by the SWOT matrix and with the aid of
Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) for their prioritization. The teaching
hospitals of a province in Iran were selected as the case study. The applied hybrid
approach allows measuring the dependencies of the SWOT factors to consider them
in assigning a strategic weight and weights to sub-factors and changing the
prioritization of the alternative strategies.
Results: FANP analysis reveals that the strategy ??1 with the final weight of 0.15
is the most appropriate strategy of medical equipment replacement in the teaching
hospitals of Guilan province under the status quo. Also, the second and third
priorities of alternative strategies have been assigned to strategies ??1 and ??1
with the final weights of 0.144 and 0.134, respectively.
Key words: Medical equipment management,technology; Medical equipment replacement, Strategic management, SWOT analysis, Fuzzy analytic network
process (FANP).
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