Value-Based Healthcare is a healthcare delivery model in which providers are paid based on patient outcomes. Its purpose is to improve quality while lowering healthcare costs. This has been around since 2010 and has been steadily gaining momentum. Healthcare systems that have embraced this concept have been focusing on 3 things: improving outcomes, increasing patient satisfaction, and lowering costs.
To achieve best outcomes, providers know they must share medical information across the continuum of care, increasing the pace at which EMR’s are being instituted. Not only do clinicians need all crucial patient information at their fingertips, but they also need their data to be collected and analyzed to produce the best coordinated care practices and treatments. These standardized practices will improve efficiency, save money, and ultimately improve outcomes.
Hospital-based health systems have been branching out to the non-acute space to make sure that they can influence their patient’s population health throughout the continuum of care. If they keep the patients healthier earlier in their life, they can cut down on the more chronic diseases that cost the systems money like diabetes, COPD, and high blood pressure. Hospitals are either buying up physician offices and other non-acute facilities or building them.
All medical systems are looking for ways to save money. They can go through the more traditional methods of standardizing products and negotiating best prices, but many systems are looking at other ways to cut costs. This might mean looking at ways to outsource specific departments and/or reviewing service contracts and bundled services agreements for cost savings.
These efforts affect the hospital’s Biomedical Department in various ways. Here are four problem areas CME Corp has observed:
1: Maintenance of iT wall arms and workstations on wheels (WOWs)
With EMR’s proliferating - so have the wall arms and WOWs that hold them. The float (uncalibrated movement) of the arms, keyboard tray failure, unorganized cabling, battery malfunctions, and mechanical maintenance on the WOWs are all new areas of focus and concern for biomedical departments. Many times, these services are being handled like “hot potato.” Biomed wants IT to handle the maintenance, and IT wants Biomed to do the maintenance. No matter whose responsibility, these very important items need regular maintenance to keep them working correctly.
CME Solution
CME provides IT arm/workstation maintenance/repair programs for hospital and physician-owned systems. Let us handle this “hot potato” for you!
2: Non-Acute Biomedical Maintenance Services
As hospital systems build or buy non-acute facilities, their biomed departments become stretched. Offsite facilities are spread out and many times have less sophisticated equipment. Nonetheless, the equipment needs to be documented, asset-managed, and maintained in these offsite facilities.
CME Solution
CME can offer non-acute, offsite, general biomed maintenance/repair services/contracts. We work with your biomed department to standardize maintenance, calibration, and inventory/asset management according to your specifications.
3: shortage of biomed technicians when opening a new facility
When a new facility is ready to open, the last thing that happens are those biomedical sign-offs that include documenting and cataloging the equipment, inspection, and functionality checks, asset ID tagging, electrical checks, and battery checks. Biomedical departments are stretched and are scheduled in advance. Many times, a new construction project is delayed and there are no technicians available for those sign-offs when the project is finished. This can affect the opening of the new revenue-generating facility.
CME Solution
CME has biomed technicians that can augment your staff and perform those biomed sign-offs according to your specifications, AND get your facility opened on-time!
4: high costs associated with oEM service agreements
OEM service contracts on beds, stretchers, and wheelchairs can be costly, but these preventive maintenance measures are crucial to keeping some of your most high-use equipment working.
CME Solution
CME offers economical preventive maintenance contracts on these high-use items and will keep them running efficiently for many years.
CME is an equipment-centric distributor that has a comprehensive portfolio of related services to better serve our healthcare customers across the country. These services include product choices, procurement, receiving, warehousing, assembly, staging, biomedical services, delivery direct-to-site and installment. Watch this Biomedical Services video or read a recent blog talking about these services “9 Ways CME Can Support Your Next Healthcare Construction Project".
Call us at 800-338-2372 to talk to us about how we can support your biomedical department or any of your equipment and service needs.
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.
