by
Philip F. Jacobus, CEO | September 19, 2012
I started out my career as a sales person, but lately it seems like I'm turning into a statistician.
I spend a lot of time looking at all the statistics we collect at DOTmed. One trend I noticed recently is that more used equipment is being offered on our site than there was during the same month last year. The equipment is also a bit older.
To be honest, I'm somewhat surprised by this because we're 48 days away from the U.S. presidential election, which could have a major impact on health care in this country.
What I theorize is that there's 18 months of pent-up demand that is now at last getting acted upon.
I suspect that people have been putting off buying, but they can't wait anymore, even though they'd like to hold off until they see how the elections turn out.
Of course, we can't be positive that all the used equipment up for sale is being replaced, either by new equipment or other older equipment. But one sign that it is is that OEMS listing used equipment on our site are seeing an uptick in responses. One has to assume that many end users are therefore replacing their older machines with refurbished equipment.
I think this is, overall, a good sign for the industry. But it'll be very interesting to see what happens after November.
Phil is a member of AHRA, HFMA, AAMI and the Cryogenic Society of America. He has contributed to a number of magazines and journals and has addressed trade groups.
Phil's proudest achievement is that he has been happily married to his wife Barbara since 1989, who helped him found DOTmed in 1998.