Medical centers are always looking for ways to cut costs when it comes to maintaining, repairing and purchasing new equipment. This article includes the top ways that hospitals and medical facilities can cut costs while continuing to improve quality care and patient outcomes.
The best way to save money in any industry is to continuing using the equipment that is already owned. It is common for medical facilities to outsource medical equipment support services. Using external service providers while having reliable support in house, otherwise known as clinical engineers, keeps equipment running at peak performance. Simple in house adjustments and simple repairs can save a tremendous amount of money. Not only are you saving on the cost of outsourced vendor services but also on the costs associated with any downtime experienced with medical equipment failure.
Support can be provided in a number of ways including in person and remote services. Instead of assuming your issue can only be resolved by having a technician come out to your facility ask about less expensive remote services. Many repairs can be accomplished through a remote technician. Through the remote session the technician can diagnosis if the equipment can be resolved with simple tweaks or if service personnel are needed on site. Most medical equipment vendors can offer support remotely twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Many times on staff clinical engineers can even repair equipment with the support of the remote operator. The nature of remote services allows the vendor to support more than one client at a time thus costing less for remote services.
Instead of working directly with the original equipment manufacturer, OEM, consider getting support from trusted third party medical equipment repair support service specialists. Working with OEMs tends to be more costly and take significantly more time then services using a third party vendor. This is a simple way to have necessary services performed on equipment while maintaining patient care.
One of the most effective ways that medical facilities can save money when it comes to large, specialized medical equipment is to make sure that regular maintenance is performed. Imaging equipment including linear accelerators and ct scanners are known for having particularly long life cycles. It is in the best interest of facilities to take advantage of this benefit. Scheduling proper maintenance and timely repairs allows facilities to get the most out of expensive medical equipment.
Radparts is the world’s largest independent distributor of OEM replacement parts for Linear Accelerators and Radiation Oncology equipment. We provide high quality, user friendly, low cost parts support for linear accelerators and radiation equipment. For more information on low cost parts for repairing Linac equipment find us at http://www.radparts.com.