Global Assistance for Medical Equipment (GAME) in Kosovo

Tom Judd, MS, CCE, CPHQ, FACCE
George Johnston, MS, PE, CCE

GAME is a coalition of interested American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE) members, with sponsorship from Atlanta-based MedShare international. GAME has done a pilot project in 2005-2006 in Kosovo with plans to extend the concept to other locations in Latin America and East Africa in 2006.

A key goal is to have Biomedical Technicians (BMET) and Clinical Engineers (CE) provide encouragement and professional assistance. The Kosovo group is composed of 35 recently trained BMETs and CEs working in six major hospitals.

This war-torn country of two million is small, but its challenges (medical device repair parts, manuals, training) are large. Their health system combats high infant mortality, chronic and infectious diseases, and virtually no funds for equipment support.

GAME worked in partnership with the Ministry of Health and a volunteer team of health technology management experts. We now seek professionals - YOU - to adopt a Kosovar CE staff member to begin “big brother/big sister” professional relationships, email them, join these calls, or stay in touch in other ways.

What are some of the needs in Kosovo? After the war in 1999, the Kosovo health system was ravaged. Several donor countries have come alongside and built or refurbished the six major hospitals. The bad new is that there has been little planning for medical device support in the midst of diversity of equipment. ACCE provided training for 70 Kosovo health leaders in 2004 through its Advanced Clinical Engineering Workshop program. Two Canadian clinical engineers conducted a preliminary assessment of needs in late 2004 and began work in the summer of 2005.

Some still unmet needs include:

1) Advice on generalized troubleshooting and repair; advice on appropriate repair parts/sources.
2) Advice on the best maintenance training approaches.
3) Need for more management experience.
4) Need for more device troubleshooting/repair skills.
5) Need for better communication skills with bosses, customers, and manufacturer representatives.
6) Need for a national biomedical society, provision of nation-wide software.
A two-day seminar was held in early June 2006 in Kosovo for health leaders, preceded by a country-wide CE meeting. The