There are a number of factors that hospitals, medical facilities, and healthcare organizations must consider before they replace equipment besides age. Each year companies could potentially waste thousands of assets by focusing solely on the age of their equipment.
It wasn’t long ago that healthcare facilities were zealous to add all of the latest surgical equipment to their organization. From robotic surgery systems, linear accelerators, and other large scaled medical equipment were installed to keep physicians happy and be competitive.
However, in recent years budgets have gotten smaller and funds have become more restricted and facilities are seeing that equipment can’t just be discarded on a whim or purchased without advanced planning. Instead equipment needs to be repaired or refurbished and kept at peak performance for longer and a strategic approach needs to be taken to replace not only large scaled equipment but also universal equipment such as beds, linens, and so forth.
Proactive replacement planning is necessary between financial and clinical leaders within organizations need to work together to plan in order to achieve:
- A reduction in expenses associated with service, parts, maintenance, and training
- A decrease “close call” events that come with the use of older equipment with more precise maintenance schedules
- A reallocation of assets that are underutilized throughout the facility
- An ability to cross train employees throughout facility locations
- An increase in consistency and standardization throughout facilities
When the above objectives can be achieved, a reduction in costs can occur with an increase in the quality of care patients receive.
Instead of the reactive strategy that medical facilities have embraced in the past more proactive approaches are being embraced. When purchasing new or refurbished medical equipment in a proactive approach allows leaders to embrace the situation over a period of time verse the reactive approach which tends to be more mission critical. Being proactive allows financial leaders in medical facilities to work with clinical leaders to plan for the addition of new equipment whether it is brand new or refurbished. When the replacement of equipment no longer is a life or death situation a better decision for the facility can be made.
Proactive planning in medical facilities allows for better outcomes overall. Financial teams and clinical teams can work together, armed with historical data, to have meaningful conversations instead of hypothetical ones. This allows better decisions to made for everyone throughout the facility from administrators and physicians to patients and care givers.
Radparts is the world’s largest independent distributor of OEM replacement parts for Linear Accelerators and Radiation Oncology equipment. Radparts provides high quality, user friendly, low cost parts support for linear accelerators and radiation equipment. More information can be found at https://www.radparts.com/.