Biomedical departments in large healthcare systems have a myriad of important responsibilities including:
- Inspection of new equipment, pre-acceptance checks, asset-tagging, and training
- Maintenance of all equipment including monitoring service contracts
- Completing required equipment monthly preventive maintenance schedules
- Maintaining inventory of new and existing equipment
- Capital budgeting, evaluating equipment, purchasing equipment, and analyzing total cost of ownership
- Monitoring equipment recall notifications, maintaining regulatory compliance, reporting to safety committees
As healthcare systems embrace population health and continue to grow up and out, biomed departments are getting stretched. CME Corp has a growing Biomedical Equipment Service division that covers the entire US, helping customers augment current staff to execute specific activities that cannot be completed by their current staff.
Below are six different customers who hired CME to solve specific Biomed challenges:
Capital Budgeting
A large medical center in the Boston area needed to evaluate their existing equipment to help with capital planning and budget, and they did not have the technicians available to do this in time for the budget process. CME provided inventory services for approximately 8,000 items. We recorded general data such as model #’s, serial #’s, and general condition.
Once the process was completed, we reviewed each item, assigned current monetary values, and determined whether the item was no longer supported and/or due for replacement. We designated two technicians to this project for three months, plus several members of our administrative team to complete reports and follow-ups with hospital Biomed personnel. The medical center was able to complete their budget and accurately forecast their new equipment needs.
Inventory Maintenance
A world-class teaching hospital in the Northeast needed to inspect, retag, and re-enter all Radiology department equipment into their inventory management system.They did not have the manpower to accomplish this in a timely fashion. CME inspected approximately 2,400 items, changed asset tags, and then re-entered all items into their inventory management system. We had four Biomed technicians on the job for six weeks. The Biomed department was able to complete this high priority task with CME’s help in a short timeframe.
Maintenance Contracts
A large IDN was an early adopter of an EMR system and was having mechanical breakdowns arise with their IT carts and arms.This was having an adverse effect on patient care as the IDN had no one maintaining these important pieces of equipment. IT thought that the Biomed department should be doing maintenance and Biomed thought that IT should be responsible. Neither had the bandwidth to perform the much-needed maintenance.
CME provided a maintenance contract on the carts and arms that included annual preventative maintenance and loaner units that were made available when needed. As a result, the breakdowns subsided. CME also worked with staff to set standards for any new equipment purchased by setting up demos with key staff members.
Newly Constructed Facility Biomedical Equipment Inspections and Inventory
A national healthcare system was opening multiple new medical office buildings and their Biomed department was unable to get all the safety inspections, functionality checks, and asset-tagging finished in time for the facilities’ opening dates. As everyone knows, when a new facility doesn’t open on time there is a resulting loss of revenue. The system asked CME to step in and help with the inspections and asset-tagging. The new facilities opened on-time and were fully functional.
High-Temperature Power Washing
A large healthcare system did not have the capabilities of power washing their non-electric transport equipment that included stretchers, wheelchairs, recliners, and IV poles. Equipment washing is a very dirty job and most hospitals do not have this kind of high-temperature washer. CME performed the washing on approximately 300 items over a 10-day period. This extended the life of the equipment and saved time for the healthcare system.
Physician Office Appraisals
A large multi-state health system was purchasing several pre-existing physician offices to extend their reach into different communities and enhance their population health initiative. Their own Biomed department was stretched thin, so they asked CME for some help. CME evaluated all the existing equipment, documented the equipment information, and assigned monetary value and life-cycle recommendations. All of this was presented in a comprehensive report to the healthcare system. This saved time and money for the system since they were able to get the physician offices reopened in an abbreviated timeframe.
Any one of these problems may have happened in your healthcare system. If you need to augment your current Biomed department for any reason, please let CME help. Our service team prides itself on its flexibility, not always choosing the easy way, but the solution that best fits the needs of our customers. For more information on our biomedical services, visit our website or call (800) 338-2372.
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.
