CME Insider's Blog Posts

Since the latest COVID surge has died down, many hospitals and surgery centers are now tackling the mountain of backlogged surgeries. Healthcare facilities need to streamline surgical processes to maximize throughput. Choosing the right surgical cart is critical. Metro’s team is consistently looking for ways to make supply transport and storage easier and more efficient for healthcare professionals. While researching storage and transport requirements for sterile processing operations, our team noticed that case carts lacked key features that could improve workflow.

Facilities were improvising to make their processes work, like using soccer cones to identify cart status, needing mittens to pull carts out of the cart washer, and fighting with carts to keep them tracking in a straight line and going around corners. The lack of a designed solution caused unnecessary inefficiencies throughout the day-to-day activities.

Introducing Metro CaseVue™, the all-new case cart that is designed around the day-to-day operations of facilities with enhancements that remove the improv and allow the sterile processing department to work more efficiently.

We get it. Selecting new ECG technology probably isn’t the most exciting thing you’ll do today. But with heart disease on the rise, it may be the most important. For too many practices, ECGs are viewed as commodities—they just need to be “good enough.”

Buying new equipment, fully warranted from the manufacturer, has always been the preferred course for most healthcare facilities’ purchasing departments. Increased lead times, raw material shortages, and rising prices have prompted supply chains to look at more readily available and less expensive refurbished or used equipment. There are many things to consider when looking to purchase refurbished or used equipment. The first thing to know is the difference between refurbished and used. Refurbished equipment is previously owned equipment restored to the original manufacturer’s standards. Used equipment implies that the equipment comes “as is”. Refurbished is usually preferred over used equipment. Here are three other issues to clarify prior to purchasing.

With healthcare equipment prices rising and lead times remaining long, there does not seem to be much light at the end of the tunnel. There are some glimmers of hope that things are improving, and that relief is on the way! The three key issues contributing to the supply chain issues are raw materials/component shortages, transportation/freight breakdowns, and labor shortages. All three have contributed to the price spikes and volatility in the industry.

Pushing, pulling, and transporting patient beds and stretchers is fairly common in most hospitals. Transporting beds from one area of the hospital to another can also be problematic. Many beds that are moved are “specialty” by nature, including Air Fluidized Therapy (AFT) and Bariatric beds, which are extremely heavy (up to 1500 lbs.) and sometimes have patients on them! Transportation routes can include slopes, ramps, carpets, and other obstacles that magnify the problem. Moving these beds and stretchers can cause strain; straining incidents are the NUMBER ONE cause of injury to healthcare workers. Workers’ compensation costs can be upwards of $5,000 per case, not to mention the loss of the healthcare worker for potentially extended periods. Hospitals are experiencing labor shortages, so minimizing workplace injuries is a BIG focus.

Crash carts or code carts are one of the most important tools used at medical facilities. If one of these code blue carts is called into action, someone's life is on the line. This is why each emergency crash cart should be optimized to be as efficient as possible. Here are some common issues medical staffers have faced with these medical carts and the innovations Metro has created to combat them.

Each year in the United States alone, 7,000 to 9,000 people die because of medication errors. Some of these tragic incidents are associated with calculation of medication dosages based on incorrect weights. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of other patients experience, but often don’t report, an adverse drug event or other complications due to medication errors in general. The total cost of looking after patients with medication-associated errors is estimated to exceed $40 billion each year.¹

The CME Corp. Government Team has over 30 years of government sales experience and the resources to make your projects and everyday purchasing go smoothly from start to finish. Whether you are purchasing a singular replacement product or outfitting a new facility, remodeling or expanding an existing location, our project planning, turnkey logistics, and services are completely tailored to meet government client’s needs. CME can assist you with identifying and procuring healthcare equipment for all your government projects, whether for DoD, VA, Indian Health, state, or local government facilities. To make acquisition of product easier, we hold major federal contracts including a Federal Supply Schedule, GSA, DoD ECAT, DoD DAPA. We are also and contracted supplier for some State / Local government co-ops / gpo’s.

The United States spends more on healthcare than any other nation, yet pressure is growing for healthcare organizations to reduce their costs everywhere. Hospitals are taking a hard look at lessening expenses while maintaining the quality of care by looking for ways to avoid and reduce unplanned costs. One of the main areas they are looking at is the operating room (OR), the area of the hospital that generates the most costs and revenue.