In business since 1979, Stockton, Calif.-based CTronics is the one of the oldest CT service ISOs in the world. The company orchestrates multi-vendor service to hospitals and clinics and also provides parts to OEMs in the multi-vendor service arena. Technologies include CT mobile, CT scanner, mammo units, modular building CT, rad/fluoro room, and x-ray tube. CTronics also does full turnkey projects for customers all over the U.S.

"We are doing very well in supplying the gastroenterology and urology markets with CT scanners," said Bill Blackford, vice president. "They're trying to recapture some of their losses from the Medicare situation and put in their own machines."


The company is also a certified Sony repair center. In an interesting marketing move, Sony has just implemented a 50 percent price reduction on its DICOM Filmstation Camera. "It's a hot item. The need for film is going down but people still need film and Sony came out with a low-cost, excellent machine, and we have them in stock," Blackford noted.

"I wanted to work with Sony because they have an attitude and philosophy that third parties are competent engineers," he added. "Other companies try to make it impossible to service their machines because they don't want to compete with third parties. Sony is an excellent company because they realize the potentials and they're taking advantage of independent service companies out there all over the US."

CTronics is in direct competition with other OEMs to provide service in hospitals. In order to compete, the company joins forces with other independents.

"We put our heart and soul into our bids to get them as low as we can. We collaborate with a lot of people and bring a lot of expertise to bear because the independent companies are more of a vertical market, more technically oriented on the MRIs, nuclear medicine, and ultrasound," Blackford said. "What I try to do for a really big contract is put together a consortium of all these parties and facilitate other companies to make sure they do a good job. We pay them and the big company, hospital or association pays us."

"We decided we could get better service to these hospitals than some of the OEMs," he said.

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