Best Practices Blueprint - Getting a Handle on Medical Device Management

Your department is responsible for a boatload of medical equipment and managing it doesn’t always allow for learning by mistakes. In some cases, that boatload could be the Queen Mary.  In other cases, it’s just a matter of working through the best workflows, procedures, protocols or practices to make managing all those devices an exercise in efficiency.

The successful approach of others can often provide a blueprint for handling that equipment throughout its life span; from cradle to grave. From evaluation to procurement, and all the way to disposition, having the right framework in place can make the task that much easier.

One such model comes from the Bon Secours Health System, a model for large system equipment management programs, with lessons for smaller systems as well. Hospital systems are beginning to operate more collaboratively to drive efficiency through standardization and that approach is working for the ARAMARK-managed program.

“By having a centralized model, efficiencies and economies of scale were realized which resulted in tremendous savings,” says Ayman Assanassios, Vice President of Operations at ARAMARK Healthcare Technologies.

“Our equipment distribution program’s ability to track equipment utilization was instrumental in not only rightsizing the inventory, saving capital dollars, but in also reducing the equipment rental spend across the system.”

The program is used throughout the equipment life cycle to find savings or efficiencies.

“The areas where we saw the most savings were related to the elimination of service contracts and controlling the equipment rental spend,” Assanassios says. “Our ability to service the equipment using our trained technicians and engineers and leveraging our national parts and support center were key to the savings realized.”

The health system had a goal of eliminating $41 million annually.

Read the entire article from TechNation!