Binseng Wang1, Kun Zheng2,Jing-yi Feng3
Clinical engineering (CE) has evolved rapidly over the last 25 years in China. Among the 34
provincial-level administrative units within China, the Zhejiang Province is one of the most advanced in terms
of healthcare technology maintenance and management. In order to determine Zhejiang’s current stage of
development and opportunities for further improvement, a comparison of the performance of its CE departments
was made against hospitals in the USA. Data were collected from 21 Zhejiang hospitals and compared to those
from 270 acute-care hospitals in USA collected by Truven Health Analytics. The benchmarking comparison was
made in three categories: operational, financial, and productivity. Within the operational category, the following
metrics were compared: equipment inventory size/operating beds, annual repairs/inventory size, and annual
scheduled maintenance/inventory size. Within the Financial category, the following metrics were compared:
total CE expense/operating beds and total CE expense/total hospital expense. Within the Productivity category,
the following metrics were compared: total CE full-time equivalent (FTE)/inventory size and total CE FTE/
total hospital expense. These comparisons showed that: (1) While the equipment inventory in Zhejiang tends to
be much smaller than USA for hospitals of comparable amount of operating beds, the numbers of repairs and
scheduled maintenance per inventory size are similar; (2) The total CE expense/total hospital expense ratio is
around 1% in both Zhejiang and USA; however, the total CE expense/operating beds and total CE expense/
cost of equipment inventory are significantly lower in Zhejiang than USA; (3) The FTE amount in Zhejiang
is significantly higher than in USA relative to both inventory size and total hospital operating expense, but
significantly lower relative to the number of operating beds. The fact that repairs and scheduled maintenance
are similar in Zhejiang and USA shows that CE leaders are managing equipment in comparable manner. Most
of the differences found in the comparisons were traced to a few factors. First, the average length of stay in
China is substantially higher than USA, which explains why hospitals in Zhejiang tend to have more operating
beds but fewer pieces of equipment. Second, labor cost is significantly lower in China than USA, thus allowing
Zhejiang hospitals to employ more workers than their American counterparts. Third, there is significantly
difference in the cost of living between China and USA; Finally, being public entities Chinese hospitals are
managed and operated in a different manner than American hospitals, which are mostly private, albeit nonprofit
organizations. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that hospitals in both areas spend roughly 1% of their
total expenditure for CE. The results suggest that CE in Zhejiang is comparable to USA in terms of managerial
excellence but there could be some room for improvement in financial management and productivity.
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