by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | November 04, 2014
From the August 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Chris O’Toole, national sales director for AllParts Medical LLC, a division of Philips Healthcare is in a unique position as neither an OEM or aftermarket equipment supplier. Instead, according to O’Toole, the company is a multi-manufacturer, multimodality imaging parts supplier. “We also provide multi-manufacturer, multi-modality training, technical support and asset disposition services. We are not limited in what parts we supply to which systems,” says O’Toole.
O’Toole sees a high demand for CT, Xray and portable parts with GE parts being in highest demand. In the past 12 months however, the company’s fastest growing modality has been ultrasound, with MR parts also bringing in healthy numbers.
AllParts is all-inclusive as a parts provider. “Parts ship with a 90-day warranty irrespective of who performs the repair or what asset the part is installed on,” says O’Toole.
For parts shoppers O’Toole recommends finding a parts supplier that offers technical support, tested parts, a breadth of quality assurance bays to test parts for the manufacturer and modality being serviced and the big one on everyone’s mind these days — competitive pricing.
It’s also a big plus if they can train your technicians in order to enable greater self reliance. Topnotch account managers and customer service representatives will also play a part in making the experience as easy as possible. Finally, program flexibility that can evolve with your needs can also prove beneficial.
Focused training and specialized tools
Joe Graham believes the engineers from his company are the go-to experts in servicing Toshiba equipment. Of course, Graham is the vice president of service sales and marketing at Toshiba, so he’s able to qualify that belief. He further backs the assertion by noting that Toshiba engineers tend to service only or two modalities of equipment and thereby receive more opportunities to gain experience on specific equipment. The company also works to keep its service professionals informed. “Toshiba Service communicates all updates quickly and regularly, keeping our engineers on the leading edge of high-quality service delivery on Toshiba equipment,” Graham says.
While experienced and knowledgeable service engineers will no doubt be in high demand for many years to come, Graham believes the big story will be about the equipment. “I think diagnostic imaging equipment will become even more reliable due to new manufacturing enhancements, installation and warranty efficiencies and more dependable components and subcomponents,” he says.