MANAGEMENT OF MEDICAL AND HOSPITAL EQUIPMENT IN THE SURGICAL CENTER: CHALLENGES AND LESSONS LEARNED BY THE NURSING COORDINATION TEAM

Resumo

Objective: to analyze challenges related to medical equipment management in an operating room and systematize lessons that can strengthen technology management and patient safety, discussing their interfaces with interdisciplinarity and gender relations in health work. Method: an experience report based on Oscar Jara Holliday's systematization framework. The experience arose from the author's five-year role as coordinator of the operating room of a regional public hospital in the countryside of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The analytical path comprised the starting point, initial questions, reconstruction of the experience, in-depth reflection, and conclusions. Results: difficulties concerned equipment availability, maintenance, control, traceability, and monitoring of return after repair, along with weaknesses in communication between clinical coordination and technology-management departments. The unavailability of essential devices required transfers between operating rooms, requests to other departments, and changes to planned workflows. Priorities included updating the inventory, classifying devices by criticality, planning maintenance, defining communication flows, monitoring downtime, and adopting management indicators. Conclusion: equipment management is part of care management and requires institutional coordination. Nursing coordination has a strategic role in connecting clinical practice with maintenance, asset management, clinical engineering, and institutional management. The reflection highlights integrated knowledge, recognition of nursing leadership, and shared responsibilities, without treating gender inequalities that were not investigated as findings of the experience.