By Cara Gaboury

As the U.S. health care industry evolves, it is facing pressure from multiple directions, from regulatory reporting requirements, complexity around managing multiple service and parts suppliers, to the ability to access vendors that offer truly flexible support that can address a health care provider’s unique business needs.

Every health care system is trying to improve efficiencies, while reducing costs. These are just a few of the hurdles that can impede the one universal goal – delivering quality patient care and improving the patient experience.



As a services leader, I have been in the health care service industry for 20 years and have been responsible for making sure my customers’ imaging and biomedical devices are operating effectively, safely and efficiently. Listening and consulting with customers about the pertinent questions they should be asking their service and parts suppliers has been core to my ability to support them in developing the right service and parts strategy.

While there are numerous questions and checklists during the acquisition, maintenance and retirement of clinical assets, there are three questions that health care business executives should ask to help drive decisions. The answers to these questions must be addressed, while balancing the need for the patient to come first.

1) Is our medical equipment management program clearly defined?
Medical devices are assets that directly impact millions of human lives and their proper function is critical to a health system’s ability to provide access to care, as well as improving the patient and clinician experience. Many factors, ranging from unacceptably long wait times, to increased demand, to rising costs, to severe shortages in key resources and staff are negatively impacting access to health care and impeding forward progress. Having a defined medical equipment management program will ensure that your organization has established a clear process and methodology to affordably, effectively and sustainably service and maintain all medical equipment used for the diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of patients, helping to mitigate some of these challenges.
Managing medical equipment activities and associated risks includes a comprehensive program that begins with the full engagement of all departments and resources impacted by capital equipment purchases, equipment operations, service maintenance and retirement. This includes activities for financial and operational considerations, such as:

• Processes for inventory management.
• Defined equipment inspection and testing.
• Low- to high-risk identification plans.

The elements of a strong medical equipment management program include activities and associated frequencies that are in accordance with manufacturers’ recommendations or with strategies of an alternative equipment maintenance (AEM) program. This will help to maximize resources and improve productivity, and can be augmented through performance analytics and consultative services.
In an effort to effectively manage a good program, a scalable, flexible and customizable computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) can help provide capabilities such as:

• Data standardization.
• Real-time KPI dashboards and reporting.
• Planned maintenance checklists and scheduling.
• Work order management (open, close, tracking).
• Parts ordering, expenses monitoring (locally and enterprisewide).
• Productivity measurement.
• The Joint Commission and other regulatory compliance tracking.
• Service contracts and warranty management.
• Equipment uptime and equipment availability capital planning.
• Equipment benchmarking.

In today’s environment with limited resources and ongoing financial pressures, a medical equipment management program can feel like a constantly evolving blueprint. However, the foundational elements of an organization’s blueprint ultimately help improve the patient and staff experience, which can lead to confidence about care and treatment, and ultimately, improved communication and trust between the patient and care provider.

2) How do I select the right service provider for my clinical and operational needs?
As part of your overall medical equipment maintenance program, one of the most important management activities is to decide which services should be provided by employees of the health care organization and which maintenance activities may be conducted by service contractors or other external service providers.

When selecting the right service resources, health care facilities should institute a careful vetting process in order to set up a successful partnership. There are many service providers internally and externally who will claim they can ”service and fix” your medical equipment for less. However, very few of these resources can deliver cost savings plus comprehensive solutions across the entire health care continuum to support your overall operational and clinical needs. Criteria such as flexible and efficient customer service, ongoing investments in education and training of engineers and a breadth of service products should all be evaluated.

Rather than working with multiple equipment service suppliers, health systems may look to consolidate with multi-vendor service providers. Numerous providers can provide OEM-quality services across multiple pieces of equipment, regardless of manufacturer. High-end modalities like MRI and CT scanners from different manufacturers can often receive the same level of high-quality service from a single provider.

Multi-facility health care organizations can also implement a service strategy that balances skills across nearby facilities. A reputable multi-vendor provider can likely service multiple locations and facilities that are within close proximity to each other. By leveraging the service provider’s consolidated expertise and support, health systems benefit from greater predictability, control and cost savings.

For external resources, service agreements can include various levels of scheduled maintenance, corrective maintenance or a combination of the two. Flexibility in the terms of service agreements is key to evaluate, since your operational needs are constantly changing. After a service agreement is in place, it is essential to monitor the performance of the service provider. Your service provider should be proactively recommending solutions to make sure that the health care organization is receiving the services it needs. All maintenance activities it performs and associated costs should also be recorded (in a CMMS, if available) and reviewed on a regular basis.

3) How do I evaluate my parts suppliers?
There are many different types of parts suppliers, ranging from low-cost uninspected parts, to fully certified and warrantied parts. Buying parts for your medical equipment maintenance program is as important as selecting your service resources. In the case of parts, you should be evaluating your parts suppliers based on dependability, quality, partnership and cost. Since the patient experience is associated with every piece of medical equipment, confirm that your parts suppliers have an operation where parts are inspected, repaired and fully functionally tested by knowledgeable support specialists. You want confidence that you will receive the right part, at the time needed, at a fair price, and that the part works.

Look for parts suppliers who offer you more than just inexpensive parts. The old adage that ”you get what you pay for,” is especially true with equipment parts. Ask your parts supplier about their operations and customer references, the depth of their parts inventory and sourcing capabilities, ease of ordering, warranty policy, defect rates, return policy shipping costs and timeframes, training programs and what kind of technical support they provide to ensure you get the right part the first time.

Using these three questions in developing a medical equipment management program can help mitigate issues down the road. Ultimately, a strong medical equipment program can help reduce costs, improve access to care, and most importantly, improve the patient and clinician experience.

About the author: Cara Gaboury is the director of field service at Philips Multi-Vendor Services.