By Vvon Engineering Team | Published | Updated
Plan dialysis capacity from prescriptions, local demand, operating hours, staffing, infection-control arrangements and machine contingency.
Medical equipment RFQ checklist (TXT)
Dialysis capacity should be planned from the intended clinical programme, catchment demand and trained staffing. Chairs and machines provide positions; usable capacity also depends on treatment prescriptions, turnaround, isolation arrangements and service continuity.
For conventional maintenance haemodialysis, three sessions a week is a common planning scenario, but the nephrology team sets each patient’s prescription. Use the intended treatment durations and observed turnaround for machine disinfection, station cleaning and patient care when modelling capacity.
From there:
That produces the treatment stations. It is not the number of machines to buy, and it is not the number of stations to build for.
The patient number is the input that decides everything, and nobody can give it to you from a textbook. Build it from what your own catchment tells you.
Where the private sector already serves part of the catchment, find out how much and at what price, because affordability rather than capacity may be what determines how many patients actually present to you.
Plan infection-control arrangements with the clinical team. CDC guidance recommends separate provision for hepatitis B surface-antigen-positive patients, including dedicated equipment and staffing arrangements. It does not require isolation or dedicated dialysis machines solely for hepatitis C positivity. Apply current local policy and specialist review, and model the capacity implications of the agreed arrangement.
Provide a documented plan for machine failure and planned maintenance. Spare equipment, flexible scheduling or agreed backup capacity may be needed; the number and readiness checks should follow service criticality and support arrangements rather than a universal spare-to-station rule.
Plan future building-services capacity with the hospital’s qualified dialysis-system designer, avoiding stagnant branches and unvalidated changes. Phase the furniture and machines to demand and staffing. Compare chairs such as the SKE-133 and suitable beds against patient transfer, positioning and monitoring needs; not every patient can use the same seating arrangement.
One constraint overrides the arithmetic. Nursing and technician staffing sets real capacity, not chairs. A unit with twelve stations and enough trained staff for eight runs eight, and the four idle stations are capital sitting still. Confirm the staffing plan before confirming the station count, and if the staffing is not there yet, phase the stations to match it.
For the distinction between HBV and HCV precautions: CDC haemodialysis infection-prevention recommendations.
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