by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | November 04, 2014
From the August 2014 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Avoiding break-fix solutions
Todd Reinke, director of service marketing for Philips Healthcare Customer Services North America, wasted no time getting to the point. “Our focus is on partnering with the customer for the long-term versus providing ‘break-fix’ only solutions,” he says.
In order to do that, Reinke says Philips employs a national network of more than 2,000 engineers that supports both Philips and non-Philips imaging systems. He also says the company continues to invest in remote services for Philips and non-Philips systems.
According to Reinke, Philips has an industry leading Uptime Service Guarantee of up to 99 percent and offers flexible service plans tailored to full-service requirements as well as support for in-house teams. Philips also offers online and onsite clinical application and training support programs.
“While we are an OEM, we also have developed an extensive service team to support multi-vendor imaging and biomedical service capabilities,” says Reinke. With Dunlee tubes and AllParts Medical providing support, the company’s multi-vendor services provide extensive coverage, according to Reinke.
Philips also offers asset management and system utilization tools to help manage the lifecycle of customers’ overall assets, he says. They also offer programs to support in-house teams via ‘first-look’ and ‘selfservice’ plans for their equipment. “These in-house plans help our customers manage costs by carrying some of the service responsibility themselves and we offer parts on programs for customers that do not want service plans, but want access to certified/ quality parts,” Reinke says.
Customers have told Reinke that they expect to see further consolidation and cost control in the service market. On their wish list, they want service providers that can help them maintain older equipment while also providing service and support to new technology and they want to see investment in new types of service options, like remote service capabilities. Reinke believes we will see service requirements from federal and state levels that will increase administrative burdens. He also believes more value-added service partnerships will crop up across entire hospital networks versus individual service plans for individual pieces of equipment or modalities.
In order to handle all the challenges destined to arise in the future, he believes it’s crucial for hospitals and service companies to work closely together and keep the lines of communication open. “By working closely together during the plan development phase, we are able to successfully support mutual expectations for a long term and very positive service relationship,” he says.
