This report originally appeared in the October 2010 issue of DOTmed Business News

On a Friday afternoon a radiologist was seeing the last of the day’s patients through their scheduled CT exams. Suddenly, the console screen lit up with an error and the system stopped scanning. The X-ray tube failed and with the weekend near and the next week’s long list of scheduled patients casting a grim shadow of costly uncertainty, the doctor contemplated how stressful the following week will be. He considered his options.

There are sourcing companies that could find the part, dealers with the inventory in stock, brokers without the part in stock, but able to get it, independent service providers, large suppliers with significant warehouses and original equipment manufacturers.

The radiologist picked up the phone. Chad Book, regional sales executive for C&G Technologies, took the call.

“There was definitely a sense of urgency in the doctor’s voice when he called, and we knew he was in a jam,” Book says. “Working with hospitals and clinics like this on a daily basis, we see this sort of thing all the time, and we know what to do.”

Book involved the parts team, and they found the tube in stock, while he worked with the doctor on price. Within an hour of receiving the green light from the doctor, the tube was loaded into packed up and on route to the site. The new tube was installed and the machine was back up for scanning before the weekend was over.

This is all in a day’s work for any reputable parts company, which has to be ready to help quickly and efficiently, as well as offer reliable and reasonably priced parts.

Since the current economic climate has caused hospitals and imaging centers to hold on to their systems longer, their older systems are more likely to break down and need parts, so parts sales have been expanding rapidly.

Options
Peruse the auctions on DOTmed.com and you’ll see that the medical parts industry is a multi-million dollar business, with numerous brokers, dealers and specialized companies offering parts for just about every piece of equipment and modality.

Some parts dealers concentrate all their interests on one particular modality or even one OEM brand of equipment.

C&G specializes in CT parts for GE and Toshiba systems.

“Way back in the beginning, our company made the decision that instead of trying to do everything and not excel at anything, to instead stick with a certain product and be the best at it,” Wayne Kramer vice president of global parts operations says. “There are a lot of people out there that list out everything — all parts, all modalities, but what happens is they aren’t really familiar with any one piece of equipment in an extreme level of detail. They can’t give 81 things an extreme level of detail.”

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