CME Insider's Blog Posts

In our current economic climate, many healthcare facilities are looking to cut back when it comes to handling equipment delivery and warehousing mainly due to a lack of warehouse space and a lack of sufficient personnel to handle all of the many tasks involved in this process. 

A number of IDNs and large systems often ask distributors and vendors to take on logistical needs they would not have in the past—and instead of keeping large items in a central warehouse, they are leaning more toward direct-to-side delivery.

Detecto and CME have teamed up to provide a wide array of innovative technology to our customers. For years, CME has been proud to partner with Detecto’s innovative, USA-made technology, with the sole purpose of exceeding your expectations by offering not only the best service, and delivery, but excellent products as well.

On January 9, 2017, the United States Access Board issued accessibility standards for medical diagnostic equipment (MDE), addressing “equipment that requires transfer from wheelchairs and other mobility aids and includes requirements for transfer surfaces, support rails, armrests, compatibility with lift devices and other features.” These standards can have far-reaching impact on hospitals, non-acute care clinics, and any size practice. As part of our mission to the healthcare community, we at CME wanted to offer an understanding of these standards and next steps in approaching them.

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.

It’s hard to believe that workstations on wheels (WOWs) weren’t in active use in healthcare settings ten years ago. The digitization of medical records, coupled with better wireless capabilities has been a real game changer for health care and WOWs have been a notable part of that change.

While around longer, the same is true of wall arms as their roles have increased to include a way to incorporate various devices within the patient room and around the facility.

Technology is invigorating healthcare with a new efficiency and increasingly new possibilities of how to deliver it. As the uses evolve, how these devices are transported or positioned is evolving too.

The patient room is getting more attention these days, primarily due to the proliferation of Internet enabled technology that brings new opportunities for both patient care and patient engagement. This change also brings new ways of looking at what the patient room needs to provide in this new age of connection.

This shift has huge impact for hospital biomed and IT departments and what is being asked of them. We’ll look at that more closely a bit later. First, let’s get some perspective on what has changed and what it means for patient care.

Demands on today’s hospital IT Department are certainly progressing at a fast pace. Growing EHR presence, Internet enabled devices appearing in locations that didn’t seem possible even 10 years ago, BYOD extending endpoints, and all this overlaid on the long-standing day-to-day healthcare IT needs mean that these departments are pulling at the seams.

Running an efficient hospital IT department is certainly more challenging, however the nature of IT means that technology, along with effective staff management, is creating opportunities for better outcomes.

Delaying the opening of a 20-doctor clinic can cost a healthcare system over $100,000 in revenue a day. Delaying the opening of a hospital can cost over $400,000 a day. It’s essential to open on time but the construction or remodeling of a medical facility is never easy.

There is so much to manage and coordinate, and unless carefully managed, deadlines slip by and things go wrong. That's why it's so important to enlist the help of a medical equipment specialist who has the resources, experience and ability to coordinate medical equipment purchasing and logistics and see the project through to successful completion on schedule.