Caremaintenance

Caremaintenance is the systematic practice of maintaining care-related assets, environments, and processes to ensure safe, reliable, and high-quality care delivery.

It spans healthcare facilities, long-term care homes, and home-based care, covering medical equipment (defibrillators, ventilators, imaging devices), building infrastructure (HVAC, electrical systems), information technology (electronic health records, patient monitoring software), and care workflows.

Key principles include preventive and predictive maintenance, risk-based prioritization, lifecycle management, safety and regulatory compliance, and thorough documentation.

Common methods include scheduled inspections and servicing, calibration, asset tracking, spare parts management, and condition monitoring. Digital tools such as CMMS or EAM systems support work orders, inventory, and reporting; remote monitoring and IoT enable real-time alerts.

Benefits include reduced equipment downtime, improved patient and resident safety, extended asset life, cost control, and better continuity of care. Challenges include budget limits, regulatory complexity, aging infrastructure, workforce shortages, and fragmented data across devices.

Variants exist across care settings, with hospital care focusing on acute devices and critical systems, while home and long-term care emphasize reliability of everyday equipment, environmental controls, and care processes.

See also: maintenance, asset management, patient safety, healthcare operations.