Many urban health care institutions around the country are struggling, but Detroit's Henry Ford Health System, with five hospitals and dozens of clinics, has been rated the best in the city. The non-profit is even expanding with a new, out-patient clinic and 300-bed facility planned in the coming years.

What's in their water? One contributor to the health system's success is the technical expertise of Patriot Medical Technologies, a division of facilities management company Sodexho.

"We provide service, preventive and corrective maintenance, and asset management. We also service what we call medical maintenance, which is the sterilizers and OR beds within the facility," said project manager Wayne Howell. "One of our responsibilities is removing or making available old or replacement equipment. I use DOTmed along with some local vendors."
The teaching institution is appointed with state-of-the art systems and often conducts clinical trials for cutting-edge technologies, so it rarely purchases pre-owned equipment. But its mothballed units are quite up to date and Patriot Medical uses DOTmed to turn that out-of-service inventory into an asset.

"Either we would have to pay to have a company to come in to remove the equipment or get some devalued trade-in from the manufacturer of the replacement," Howell says of a world without DOTmed. "Now we are able to sell the equipment, have someone else remove it, and allow our construction people to start preparing the room for the new equipment."

Patriot Medical handles some 13,000 pieces of imaging equipment with two dozen staffers devoted to the account.

"We work well together as a team [with the hospital staff] because we know that their prime objective is taking care of the patient," Howell said. "They need their equipment functioning correctly and at top efficiency to do that."

Since Patriot Medical works with clinicians and hospital administrators, clients are by definition educated consumers. "People in this field are college educated, knowledgeable...we try to provide the information so that they can expand their knowledge and make quality and good decisions," Howell noted. "We're the middle man between making sure that the clinician can do his job but also letting that administrator know when a piece of equipment needs to be replaced or an additional unit is needed to make you run more efficiently."

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