Medical Equipment Replacement Program

The $35 million Medical Equipment Replacement Program provides Victorian Government funding to replace prioritised highest critical risk capital medical equipment for acute services in public hospitals. Examples include:

• microscopes
• digital x-ray units
• computed tomography (CT) scanners
• heart imaging equipment such as fluoroscopy units SPECT-CT gamma cameras.

Eligible health services will be advised when the next call for submission process starts.

For assistance regarding the funding programs please contact MERP&EIRP@health.vic.gov.au.

Eligibility

The Medical Equipment Replacement Program is available to eligible Victorian public hospitals for acute services and includes two components:

1. Specific-purpose capital grants are allocated to metropolitan and regional health services to replace in-scope critical at-risk medical equipment valued up to $300,000 (excluding GST). The grants can also be used to replace medical equipment greater than $300,000 (excluding GST) if the health service considers it to be the highest risk of all the outstanding in-scope assets.
2. The High Value Statewide Replacement Fund is available for in-scope single items over $300,000 (excluding GST) that carry high risk in terms of service provision. The fund is managed via a bid-based submission process through which health services submit bids. The assessments, prioritisation and allocations consider a whole-of-system perspective and are prioritised to highest critical risk scores against set criteria.

Health service investments are accountable to asset plans, must maximise value-for-money procurement and must be consistent with government policies, practices, and asset management frameworks.

The 2022-23 funding round adopted a direct allocation process for the High Value Statewide Replacement Fund component. Funding was provided to the highest ranked critical risk items that were supported in principle in 2021-22, but were unable to be funded in that round.

Criteria

Submissions for the High Value Statewide Replacement Fund are restricted to the replacement of medical equipment that sustain existing acute services in Victorian public hospitals and that replace qualifying highest priority critical existing assets that pose an unacceptable and immediate threat to patient/staff safety.

Submissions should ensure the requests:

• are in-scope
• are ‘project ready’
• are end of life
• are overdue and time-critical to be replaced/renewed
• are mission-critical to service delivery or direct life safety
• cannot reliably be undertaken by any other means and have asset and service support shortfalls that cannot be reasonably or acceptably addressed via maintenance
• are major technical upgrades to existing imaging equipment to extend effective life and where the clinical benefits and extension of effective life are demonstrated
• represent a major breach in mandatory legislative and statutory requirements
• need due consideration by the programs because without replacement they
  • will critically and unequivocally impair health service delivery
  • present a strong likelihood of asset and service failure, leading to an untenable gap in business continuity
  • represent a major breach in mandatory legislative and statutory requirements.

Assessment

Submissions are assessed against an established set of criteria and priority will be given to submissions that address critical risk, (patient safety, occupational health and safety, service availability) and service level weighting – in accordance with the Medical equipment asset management framework.

More information

Refer to the 2021-22 Engineering Infrastructure and Medical Equipment Replacement Program – Guidelines in the downloads section below.

It is vital that our hospitals have access to the latest developments in medical equipment and technology. This funding program helps acute public hospitals across the state provide a high standard of care, more accurate diagnosis, and a safe environment for patients and healthcare workers and maintain clinical service availability.

The Medical Equipment Replacement Program aims to:

• support health services in managing risk and maintaining patient safety, occupational health and safety, and service availability, as well as helping avert unacceptable clinical service interruptions or failures
• enable qualifying at-risk critical medical equipment due or overdue for replacement to be replaced in a timely and prioritised way, consistent with statewide strategic and service plans, service delivery needs and asset management plans
• sustain at-risk assets that provide essential capacity for delivering responsive and appropriate acute clinical services across Victorian public hospitals
• provide a safety net to minimise whole-of-system risks
• devolve a level of capital funding to health services’ management, making prioritising the replacement of at-risk assets more flexible, reducing administrative burden and helping to improve asset management
• help health services to implement effective asset management that aligns with existing government frameworks and policies
• develop and implement multi-year medical equipment asset management plans for health services consistent with their role in the statewide context and appropriate to their asset management requirements

The Medical equipment asset management framework presents the foundation business practice to plan and manage medical equipment to achieve efficient, effective, and safe service operation of medical equipment.

Based on the asset lifecycle (record and maintain asset information > plan > acquire > operate > dispose), the framework will assist health services manage their assets.

The framework:

• supports risk management and financial planning using a consistent and structured approach
• informs preparation of asset management plans (medical equipment and other assets)
• positions health services to best plan, acquire, operate, and dispose of medical equipment.

The practices applied in the framework can be generally applied to all asset classes.

The framework comprises two parts:

• Part A has key features for management.
• Part B has details for users, practitioners, and decision-makers.

The framework is supported by a companion Part C document that contains web-based tools, information sheets, templates, checklists, and packages to assist the framework implementation

• Medical equipment asset management framework: Part A and B
• Medical equipment asset management framework: Part C

Projects funded through the Victorian Government’s Medical Equipment Replacement Program are administered by the Victorian Health Building Authority. These projects are delivered by the public funded health service provider.