References and case studies

Located in Northern Uganda, in one of the poorest regions of the world, St. Mary's Hospital Lacor is one of the largest non-governmental hospitals in equatorial Africa. A facility capable of providing over 200,000 healthcare services annually. 80% of the patients are women and children, the most affected by poverty and malnutrition. Born as a small missionary hospital in 1959, in over 60 years of operation, thanks to the visionary management of Piero and Lucille Corti, and later passed on to entirely local leadership, Lacor Hospital is now a reference point not only for over 750,000 residents of the surrounding districts but also for the entire Northern Uganda and neighboring countries.

Lacor provides specialized care in medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and obstetrics-gynecology to thousands of patients on a daily basis. On average, each day, it assists 600 people on an outpatient and inpatient basis. It has 554 beds (including those located in the 3 Peripheral Health Centers, located over 50 km from the hospital). Lacor Hospital's mission is to ensure medical care and assistance to the most vulnerable without discrimination based on gender, race, social status, religion, or political affiliation. The hospital's annual budget (over 6 million Euros) is largely covered by foreign donations and the Corti Foundation. A portion also comes from those patients who can afford to contribute to expenses with a mostly symbolic or highly subsidized amount.

In support of healthcare activities, Lacor Hospital has developed a Technical Department (65 employees) that internally carries out all activities to ensure the proper functioning of facilities and networks, from building construction to vehicle and medical equipment maintenance, to the management of the electrical network and water supply.

Asset management, especially of medical equipment, is one of the most complex challenges for the Technical Department, as until recently, the hospital did not have a specific tool to maintain an updated inventory and facilitate the management of preventive and corrective maintenance interventions. In early 2023, the Department, supported by the hospital management, decided to improve the service through the acquisition of a software that could meet the requirements, especially regarding the most important area, namely the maintenance of medical equipment. The choice fell on the openMAINT software, based on considerations of an economic nature, as it is an open-source software, and based on the ability to customize the system according to the specific needs of the hospital.

Thanks to the joint work of hospital technicians - especially the biomedical engineering group, assisted by Fabio Bradach, a biomedical technician who has been supporting Lacor Hospital as a volunteer for years - and the work of Tecnoteca, and the generosity of donors supporting the hospital, openMAINT has been in production at Lacor Hospital since September 2023. It now allows managing all maintenance processes related to biomedical equipment. In particular, it has allowed the introduction of preventive maintenance processes, which were previously fundamentally impractical. This significant step is expected to gradually reduce the occurrence of failures, offering better service and also reducing the cost associated with maintenance activities.

In the future, the Technical Department aims to expand the coverage of the system to all other hospital machinery, to further improve the service offered internally in support of all Lacor's complex activities.

Dr. Jacopo Barbieri - Head of the Technical Department