by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | August 20, 2018
From the August 2018 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“The machine has our brand on it and we want to make sure the machine is providing an image that’s appropriate for our brand,” Minnigh said. “I think it is a differentiator for us.”
OEMs outside the imaging space are also offering more flexibility.
Dräger, which provides service for architectural solutions and medical lights, anesthesia machines, patient monitors, clinical IT and accessories, offers customers to choose from a variety of service offerings based upon their individual needs, said Robert Rejmaniak, services marketing manager for North America at Dräger.
“When you invest in customized service from Dräger, the value you receive from devices and technology is just the beginning,” Rejmaniak said. “We offer services that help improve outcomes, optimize workflow and workspaces, streamline data capture, and support consistent use with common user interfaces and operating philosophies. Ultimately, we believe the services we offer can elevate care for patients and help customers realize financial value in a variety of new ways.”
Extending a hand in-house
Some of these service changes have been driven by a move toward in-house biomedical departments.
“If one hospital has a trained biomedical department that can provide the on-site labor, Konica Minolta will adjust the service level and price accordingly, helping the hospital improve cost effectiveness,” Chlopecki said.
Philips' services for in-house teams include training, predictable spending on parts and shared risk solutions with external engineering resources.
“We also offer full-service Philips and multi-vendor solutions to balance in-house capabilities,” Phillips said.
Carestream is also flexible when it comes to hospitals with biomedical departments. They may want to have the biomedical staff only work on CT and MR, or on DR as well, Minnigh said. There are some agreements in which the customer has agreed to take first call, others where they want to do all the work and only call Carestream when they need them, as well as service contracts that only cover parts and phone support.
