Patent ID: 8768721

Claim:
A medical instrument management support apparatus, the apparatus comprising: an endoscopic examination schedule memory unit operative to store an endoscopic examination schedule including the starting time and the ending time of each endoscopic examination; a cleaning capacity memory unit operative to store the number of operable cleaning apparatuses among a plurality of cleaning apparatuses that clean an endoscope used for the endoscopic examination; a processor; and a memory storing computer readable instructions that, when executed by the processor, implement: a cleaning schedule generation unit operative to generate, in accordance with an endoscopic examination schedule stored in the endoscopic examination schedule memory unit, a cleaning schedule for cleaning a used endoscope produced at the end of each endoscopic examination, with as many cleaning apparatuses as the number of operable cleaning apparatuses stored in the cleaning capacity memory unit; and an endoscope shortage determination unit operative to determine whether or not there will be a shortage of endoscopes to be used for each endoscopic examination in accordance with both the endoscopic examination starting time specified by the endoscopic examination schedule and the cleaning ending time specified by the cleaning schedule, wherein the endoscope shortage determination unit determines whether or not there will be a shortage of endoscopes by simulating the transition of the number of usable endoscopes that decreases upon the start of each endoscopic examination and increases upon the completion of cleaning the used endoscope in accordance with the cleaning schedule, wherein the number of cleaned endoscopes stored in a facility where the endoscopic examination is performed is set to be the initial value, the cleaning schedule generation unit sets, when there is an available cleaning apparatus among cleaning apparatuses that are operable at the ending time of the endoscopic examination, the ending time of a cleaning of a used endoscope produced at the end of the endoscopic examination to the time obtained by adding the cleaning time of the cleaning apparatus to the ending time of the endoscopic examination, and sets, when all the cleaning apparatuses that are operable at the ending time of the endoscopic examination are in the process of cleaning, the cleaning ending time of a used endoscope produced at the end of the endoscopic examination to the time obtained by adding the cleaning time of a cleaning apparatus whose cleaning finishes the earliest to the cleaning ending time of the cleaning apparatus, and the endoscope shortage determination unit decreases the number of the usable endoscopes at the starting time of each of the endoscopic examinations, increases the ending time of cleaning the used endoscope, and determines that there will be a shortage of endoscopes when the number of the usable endoscopes goes below zero in the endoscopic examination schedule.