In an age when continued growth and profitability for healthcare systems requires them to spread their footprint outside of their acute care setting, the building or acquisition of non-acute care facilities is only going to increase.
This means the management of those equipment assets increases as well. For the biomed team tasked to oversee these facilities, as well as their own acute care setting, this poses operational challenges that can tax an already stretched department.
The question must be asked, ‘what steps can an in-house biomed department take to circumvent exposure at an off-site location?’
As a comprehensive healthcare equipment provider committed to being an effective partner with our customers over the lifetime of their product investment, CME has determined three areas where our expertise and programs can help both hospital and other healthcare systems manage these assets.
Equipment Oversight
The first and most important of the priorities is the same off-site and on-site; keeping biomed equipment up and running. Equipment breakdowns are inevitable, but in healthcare settings, those breakdowns can be life affecting. Biomed departments that have responsibility for remote locations shoulder tremendous responsibility for keeping all equipment operational and maintaining regulatory compliance across the entire continuum of care. We have modeled our programs to augment those very busy and stretched biomed departments.
Our biomed technicians are the foundation of that approach. By employing our own technicians, we can assure the highest level of technical support is provided. Our technician recruitment and training procedures have been developed to assure that our staff meets the stringent needs of the healthcare community we serve.
CME offers equipment maintenance programs for both non-acute and post-acute care facilities whether they are independent or hospital-owned off-sites.
Equipment Appraisal
Knowing what you have, and how much it’s worth, is a fiduciary responsibility that has an impact on current and future actions. Group expansion, end of practice appraisals, mergers, and liquidations, are just some of the situations where a clear, accurate tallying up of assets is essential.
As a nationwide company that has been procuring medical equipment for over 30 years, CME has an intimate understanding of the value of the products we sell. We’ve developed a proprietary, continually updated database of equipment and other physical practice assets that, coupled with our industry experience, allows us to thoroughly and professionally ascertain off-site facility valuation.
“We had a healthcare system on the East Coast that was assessing whether they wanted to buy a physician practice to expand their reach within the community,” explained Jon Doda, National Services Director for CME. “We did an appraisal of the equipment in the physician practice to monetize the assets and test all of the equipment to make sure everything worked. This appraisal helped our customer make an informed decision.”
New Facility Equipment Services
Inspecting and testing new equipment can drain the resources of a healthcare facility’s bio-med team and could delay a facility from opening on time, which is never good from a revenue perspective.
CME is ready to support your bio-med team to ensure your facility opens on time and fully functional.
Our biomedical equipment services include:
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Initial pre-project meeting with your bio-med staff to discuss hospital requirements for incoming electrical inspections
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Deliver, de-box, assemble, and install all equipment and remove trash
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Document any failed equipment with hospital and manufacturer at time of receiving
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Inventory and catalog all items by Asset ID#, Manufacturer, Model, SN, and location
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Perform comprehensive equipment testing for electrical safety
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Additional testing may include equipment functionality, battery functionality, scale calibration, preventative maintenance, performance verification, and output measurement testing
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Affix asset ID tags and inspection result stickers according to hospital guidelines if needed
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Provide all required documentation and equipment reporting for your CMMS
“One of our customers, a large health system in the West, has a solid biomedical department that is located in their hospital,” said Cindy Juhas, the Chief Strategy Officer for CME. “When they build a new clinic, their techs are already scheduled for normal PM activities and they cannot always get to the new facility to do electrical checks and asset tagging in a timely manner."
This has delayed the openings of some of the facilities and caused a disruption in their normal PM scheduling. We are helping them with these non-acute startup biomedical services by doing these electrical checks, asset tagging and documenting all the equipment in the facility according to their process. We know the products and we have a team of certified biomedical technicians located across the country that can be agile and adaptable to a situation such as this.”
About CME: CME Corp is the nation’s premier source for healthcare equipment, turnkey logistics, and biomedical services, representing 2 million+ products from more than 2,000 manufacturers.
With two corporate offices and 35+ service centers, our mission is to help healthcare facilities nationwide reduce the cost of the equipment they purchase, make their equipment specification, delivery, installation, and maintenance processes more efficient, and help them seamlessly launch, renovate and expand on schedule.
