4 Capital Equipment Purchasing Tips for Your Off-Site Locations

Purchasing medical equipment is an entirely different animal when doing so for off-site locations, such as maternity clinics, freestanding ambulatory surgery centers, or imaging centers.  When buying for facilities outside of the main hospital, there are several third-party individuals involved in whom you must place your trust.  That said, having too many hands in the pot often leads to mistakes due to miscommunication, among other things.  To help you combat these errors, we’ve come up with four tips to keep in mind when purchasing capital medical equipment for off-site locations.

Tip #1: Delivery constraints

Your off-site locations may not have loading docks, personnel, or other necessities for receiving large deliveries.  This means the equipment must be delivered by smaller vehicles and brought in through a part of the facility frequented by patients.

Tip #2: Consider patient care workflow

When choosing a medical equipment specialist, look for one that will be able to schedule deliveries to your off-site locations at your convenience, when patient flow is reduced or absent.

Tip #3: Consider staff convenience

Although the off-site location you’re purchasing for is most likely fully staffed, it’s important to remember that those staff members aren’t trained for the medical equipment purchasing process.  Not only will they be occupied with their normal duties during an equipment delivery (meaning their schedule gets interrupted when they are responsible for handling the delivery), but also they may not know the proper procedures to be done in order to ensure proper setup and use.  To avoid risking errors, utilize an equipment specialist company that has experts in:

• Assembly and setup of equipment upon delivery or, more conveniently, before the equipment is delivered;

• Testing of equipment for proper functioning;

• Removal of packing materials and other waste from the area.

Tip #4: Consider ease of mind.

Utilizing a third-party to deliver medical equipment may not work out as planned.  Many times, purchasing agents and managers overlook the miscommunications and mistakes that can easily occur when equipment purchasing is handled by different companies in each phase.  Rather than deal with costly and time-consuming errors, think about working with equipment specialists who take care of the purchasing process from start to finish.  This gives you one point of contact and helps you keep your peace of mind from ordering to set up.

CME is a medical equipment specialist company with over 30 years of experience.  We offer all that’s mentioned here, and more.  From ordering to equipment use instruction, we provide everything you need to put your mind at ease when purchasing off-site medical equipment.  To learn more about how we can make the process easier for you, contact us today.  

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.