Privatization of biomedical engineering services in Malaysia-formulating performance indicators in contractual agreements

The decision to privatise was primarily due to increasing dissatisfaction at the performance and service provided by current biomedical engineering departments. The lack of funding, shortage of manpower and bureaucratic hurdles typical of today´s public service, has provided the necessary impetus and eventual support of the decision. At a cost of £30 million per year and to achieve the full benefit of the project, performance indicators and standards were formulated to assess reliability and effectiveness of the privatised services. Three performance indicators, their standards and the necessary specific requirements in compliance to regulatory and quality systems are discussed