In an effort to help Peru’s Ministry of Health improve critical prenatal and maternal health care services, the University and Vermont’s technical services program (TSP) and EQ2 will provide free clinical equipment management systems and training to the Instituto Nacional Materno Perinatal.

This collaboration adds to TSP’s ongoing efforts to help Peruvian health care professionals dramatically improve their quality of care through better training and clinical systems management.

“The University of Vermont has established a collaboration with the Pontificia Catolica University in Peru and other Latin American universities to develop bilingual online courses for medical equipment,” said Tobey Clark, director, TSP. “Part of the program includes two students coming every year from Pontificia Catolica to the University of Vermont for a five-month internship where they learn about clinical engineering and medical device management using, in part, the EQ2 HEMS hospital equipment management system—a critical tool for medical device management at TSP.”

“Because we have a long-standing relationship with TSP and the University of Vermont, we decided to help by donating one of our comprehensive HEMS software suites along with a Microsoft SQL licensed server to run it,” said EQ2 president Jim Smith. “We thought our equipment donation would complement perfectly the clinical equipment performance, maintenance, and management training expertise provided by TSP. It does no good to provide high-tech medical gear to developing countries if there is no plan or process to maintain the equipment and make it as productive as possible.”