Many medical facilities and healthcare clinics find themselves mauling over questions regarding repairing or replacing medical equipment. Questions may include ones such as the following:
- What is the typical lifespan of the equipment?
- Are we near the end or at the beginning of the equipment’s lifecycle?
- Is it going to be cheaper to replace the piece now or to repair it?
- Are repairs feasible and if so, are they cost effective?
- When repaired will the equipment still be able to provide the high patient care standards we desire?
- What is the cost of removing the old equipment?
- Do we see maintenance costs of the older equipment increasing?
Often the choice to purchase a new piece of equipment verse repairing an older piece of equipment has to do with the cost of maintaining the older unit. Medical facilities and clinics figure if they are spending a couple of thousand dollars to maintain it then it is most likely better to replace it with a new piece. When it gets too expensive to maintain it is time to purchase a new piece of equipment.
For larger pieces of equipment like linear accelerators, CT scanners, and other radiation therapy equipment parts may start to become obsolete. When this occurs, parts for older equipment LINAC become quite scarce. It is important for facilities to ensure there are enough replacement parts available to maintain their equipment because the parts won’t be available any longer. It doesn’t mean that facilities need to plan for new equipment in the next year but that they should start planning for alternative part sources and planning for new equipment.
Make sure you are totaling up the annual costs of medical equipment repairs. Costs for parts and repairs can change as parts become scarce. Obviously, manufacturers of large scaled equipment want you to buy new sooner rather than later while the finance people within your facility want you to maintain the equipment as long as possible, especially when technology has not changed a great deal. Obviously, the goal is to make sure you are not spending valuable resources unnecessarily.
Medical facilities should find various resources in which to seek opinions on equipment and whether it should be replaced or not. Finding a solid medical repair and maintenance partner, such as Acceletronics and Radparts when determining whether to replace or repair an item, as well as what to do with older pieces when purchasing new ones.
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/.