Buying equipment is not easy. There needs to be extensive research, at times, to find the right product that meets the needs of the users, fits the space, and communicates with the healthcare facility’s EMR, if required. Once you find the right products, whether it is for replacement or a new construction project, you need a timely, comprehensive quote that includes total costs.
Purchasing equipment has hidden costs that might include freight, storage, waste disposal, assembly, delivery directly to the rooms, and maintenance. Working within a capital or construction budget is important to most healthcare facilities, and knowing all the costs and staying within that budget is crucial. If there are various items ordered for a particular project from a variety of manufacturers, managing and tracking the arrival of the equipment is important to keep storage costs at a minimum and get delivery on-time.
CME Corp is the expert in all facets of equipment. As your trusted medical equipment distributor, we have developed services and processes over the last 40+ years that make equipment purchasing as easy for our customers as possible.
Finding All of the Appropriate Equipment
Supply Chain Challenges: Researching products in a variety of product categories and identifying the specific needs of each department, product demonstrations, and hard-to-find items can be a tedious process.
The Easy Button: CME account managers are well-trained in a wide variety of product categories including exam and patient room furniture, diagnostic equipment, storage solutions, stainless steel, IT carts and accessories, medical and non-medical refrigeration, EVS, physical therapy, and other specialized equipment. They can help with product comparisons, coordinate product demonstrations, and do the research to find those outlier pieces of equipment.
Quick, Comprehensive, Consolidated Quotes
Supply Chain Challenges: Construction projects can include 50-300 different suppliers, so chasing a multitude of suppliers down to get timely quotes can be a real challenge. Additionally, making sure that all of the provided quotes are comprehensive and include all costs, and also making sure you stay within the budget are more things to consider.
The Easy Button: CME account managers pride themselves on fast turnaround for quotes and making sure they provide visibility on all associated costs. We work diligently with customers to help them stay within or under budget by providing high, quality, lower cost alternatives. We have contracts with major GPOs and get special pricing from many top manufacturers because of our volume, offering pricing that is more than competitive. We can generally quote on 90+ of the items on any project equipment list, saving the customer time, effort, and a lot of chasing!
Tracking and Managing the Equipment Journey Through the Supply Chain
Supply Chain Challenges: The next challenge is making sure all the POs are issued and confirmed. Coordinating those 50-300 suppliers to all deliver the equipment at the time you want - not too early and not too late - can be as hectic as it sounds. Also, being able to track the items once they have shipped poses another challenge.
The Easy Button: CME has developed a revolutionary, proprietary software that tracks products from the time the PO is issued to when the customer signs off on the delivery. The software prompts follow-up, when needed, if rules are not met. For instance, if we transmit a PO to a vendor and we have not received a confirmation within 48 hours, we call to follow-up. All the supply chain activity is recorded in real-time and can be accessed by the customer as often as needed. This provides transparency to the customer on where their new products are at any time during the process.
Warehousing, Assembling, Staging, and Delivering Direct to Site
Supply Chain Challenges: Having no warehouse space to store equipment, and having no one available to assemble equipment presents a variety of difficulties. For new construction projects, when no one is available to receive items or transport the items to the room, and there is no secure area to store items, you can be left with a great deal of frustration.
The Easy Button: CME has over 30 service centers around the country that have the capacity to receive, store, assemble, stage, and deliver the items directly to the rooms when needed. Our team is staffed with CME employees who are trained on healthcare equipment. We can manage all the items you buy from us, as well as the products you may buy directly from other suppliers. The consolidated deliveries are coordinated with our project management team, ensuring fewer deliveries and maximum efficiency. Instead of coordinating 50-200 separate deliveries, you can coordinate with CME for as few deliveries as needed.
Asset-Tagging, Electrical Checks, and other Biomedical Activities
Supply Chain Challenges: With biomedical teams stretched, sometimes getting new equipment asset-tagged, inventoried, and electrically-checked in a timely fashion can be impossible. After the equipment is installed, especially in non-acute settings, certain biomedical checks are burdensome.
The Easy Button: CME has Biomedical Technicians (BMETs) located across the US. Our BMETs can augment your biomedical team to help get those time-sensitive start-up services done, like electrical checks. Further, CME can design preventive maintenance agreements for those outpatient settings on a variety of equipment. Anytime your current biomedical team needs to be stretched, CME can help.
One-Stop Solution
CME is your one-stop equipment solution whether you are buying one item or 6,000 items for a new construction project. We are not just your average medical equipment distributor. From purchasing to disposal, we can help to make each process of the equipment lifecycle easier, more efficient, and cost-effective. Give us a try!
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.
