by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | August 12, 2016
From the August 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Advice for facilities
Flewwelling notes that it is critical for hospitals and health systems looking into a similar arrangement to have buy-in from various stakeholders, including clinicians. The contract is set up so that 40 percent of the system’s equipment will be replaced with Siemens products, while the other 60 percent can be purchased from any vendor. “Clinician choice was very important,” Flewwelling says. Osler officials also made sure the service was standardized across the health system’s clinical services, with one point of contact.
The MES partnership did not disrupt staffing at Osler, because the biomedical engineers do not work on digital imaging equipment. “Osler’s employees and programs are pleased to have a ‘one stop shop’ and single phone number for support when requiring service on existing and new equipment,” Flewwelling says. “The MES contract has made the process more seamless and efficient, allowing Osler staff to have even more time to focus on the health and well-being of our patients.” The response of the biomedical engineering department to an asset management company depends on how open the in-house employees are to change, says Morford of RENOVO.
“When an outside asset management firm is brought in by the hospital’s executive team, the in-house biomedical employees’ biggest concern is their job security and compensation,” Morford says. “With RENOVO, once they know that their employment will continue and their compensation will not change, and that they will be supported by a nationwide organization solely focused on providing quality clinical engineering services, their concerns start to subside. We have to prove to them over time that we do what we say we’re going to do.
There will always be those one or two individuals who didn’t agree with their hospital administration’s decision to outsource their department, and oftentimes these technicians will leave for other in-house employment opportunities.” An asset management program can be a good fit for any facility, from small, rural facilities to academic medical centers, to large regional IDNs. “There really is no segmentation by size of the facility in a health care provider’s decision to outsource,” Cannon says. “The decision to outsource the clinical engineering function is based, rather, on the long-term goals and strategy of the respective health care provider.”
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