From the August 2019 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Conduct an audit on equipment and SMAs to gain control of spending
So how can an organization begin to better manage service costs for their equipment? The best place to start is to conduct an audit that captures every piece of capital equipment within the system as well as their corresponding contracted agreements. This is especially important with merged entities. The parent organization often has a different set of service agreements than the acquired organization, and there needs to be a strategy to get the contracts aligned.
Depending on the organization, an audit can take a year or more, but it may lead to some surprising discoveries. For instance, one hospital realized it was paying twice for the same service — once through an OEM contract and again through a third-party maintenance vendor under an umbrella agreement for all of the health system’s equipment.
The third option for service maintenance — beyond the OEM and third-party vendor — is in-house. When determining which option is better, organizations should consider the level of expertise within their biomed staff and bandwidth – how many pieces of equipment can each individual reasonably cover? Are staff appropriately certified for the various types of equipment maintenance that is required?
Additionally, consider the level of service in the agreement. Service contracts in general are complex, but they’re also highly configurable. The typical variables are:
• Service hours and days
• Uptime guarantee
• Preventive maintenance (PM) conducted off-hours or during contracted hours
• Equipment configuration
• Glassware/helium coverage
• Level of coverage e.g., parts versus preventive maintenance, full or partial service plans, etc.
• Time of SMA purchase (POS or post warranty)
The organization’s clinical engineering staff, in some organizations called biomedical engineering, are the in-house experts at advancing care through hospital technology and must work with the purchasing department to make these decisions.
Gaining visibility and control of service agreement costs is a short-term challenge to be sure, but one with cost-savings rewards to be uncovered for the long-term budget.
About the author: Rebecca Gayden is vice president of sourcing operations at Vizient, where she leads Vizient’s capital and construction, imaging and analytics, facilities and energy portfolios. With a healthcare background spanning nearly 20 years, Gayden has served in numerous management positions since joining the company in 2005. She has provided leadership across a broad range of areas, including Provista’s diversification strategy.
Prior to joining Vizient, Gayden worked in health-care consulting as an equipment planner for over 11 years, serving as project manager on initiatives ranging in size from small ambulatory surgery centers to one million square-foot replacement facilities. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University Sacramento.
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