Lifecycle Management
Excellence in Clinical
Engineering Services
boost your bottom line by planning for all lifecycle costs and options related to capital equipment such as selection and procurement, implementation, management and monitoring, and end of
life management.
An interview with Dale Hockel, senior vice
president of operations at TriMedx
What role does your service play in an
integrated health delivery system?
Can you discuss your company’s
product/solution?
Created by and for healthcare in 1998, TriMedx
started as a small clinical engineering department at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis, Ind.
dale hockel
Today, TriMedx manages more than 600 skilled
biomedical, laboratory and imaging technicians and serves more
than 1,100 facilities nationwide, from large health systems to small
clinics, surgery centers and labs.
TriMedx Clinical Engineering Services offering provides a
cost-effective, low-risk model that allows hospitals to move toward
clinical engineering excellence. The TriMedx program is designed
to simplify and streamline clinical engineering processes while
tracking, documenting and measuring service performance all in
an effort to provide an enhanced level of accountability and focus
while helping hospitals realize a significant cost savings.
How is your solution unique in the industry?
Unlike many service providers in this area, TriMedx collaborates
with the hospital’s existing staff to identify service solutions to
eliminate disparate processes and inefficiencies. With this type
of solution, the hospital’s clinical engineering employees remain
their employees while TriMedx works to enhance and maximize their skill sets through ongoing career training. Hospitals
gain evidenced-based data to assist with capital acquisition processes, training, regulatory support and relevant “Industry Best
Practices” to achieve performance excellence, all with their existing staff.
In this environment, we work together to centralize all clinical
engineering components, including equipment performance
data, vendor service contract management, automated parts
procurement, alerts and recall management as well as trouble
call reporting through our call center. Our call center allows
hospital staff to speak with a live person, who answers the phone
quickly with the data to triage their issue immediately helping to
improve uptime.
We refer to this method as an in-sourced solution – one which
uses your staff in a total cost of ownership approach to capital
equipment planning. This approach enables you to effectively
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Over the years, we’ve worked with a growing cadre of healthcare providers who are hard pressed to serve more patients (and
comply with more federal mandates) with fewer resources. And,
despite those challenges, we’ve led them to considerable savings
and newfound efficiencies, without compromising care through
our unique service delivery strategy. The TriMedx philosophy for
TriMedx utilizes the best technology
available in the Clinical Engineering
service industry. Our state-of-theart, web-based capital asset
management system, is the most
innovative, comprehensive and
reliable platform in the industry.
superior service is decreasing medical equipment costs while increasing equipment uptime and response time without compromising care. We do so by increasing the availability and expertise
of in-house staff, closely monitoring equipment preventive maintenance schedules and reducing reliance on OEM and vendor service contracts.
This process begins with developing a capital equipment plan
using historical data, matching every device located in the hospital’s inventory individually to a service strategy to support clinical requirements. In addition, TriMedx collaborates with key
stakeholders within the system to choose the best combination of
services and resources. The plan will provide a detailed roadmap
of service for each piece of equipment based upon clinical need.
We believe the most responsive, sustainable and cost-effective
clinical engineering model is a well-trained in-house team, continually building on their own capabilities and self-sufficiency. We
have refined the tools and methods that have built high-performance clinical engineering teams at hundreds of healthcare facilities. Because we’ll build on the team already in place, the transition
to a fully in-house program is seamless and low risk and allows for
improved quality of service and patient safety.
TriMedx also invests heavily in the professional growth, engage-
ment and satisfaction of the in-house clinical engineering team to
move them to biomedical independence.
How is your company positioning
itself as a leader in the field?
TriMedx utilizes the best technology available in the Clinical Engineering service industry. Our state-of-the-art, web-based capital
asset management system, is the most innovative, comprehensive and reliable platform in the industry. This system provides
real-time data to our initial responders to healthcare equipment
maintenance and repair requests. Because they have all of the inventory information available to them at the touch of their fingertips, our call-response times are some of the fastest in the industry.
Our proprietary computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) offers various service and financial reporting tools
which will allow hospitals to monitor equipment performance,
program effectiveness, and meet regulatory standards. These reports include device information such as age and value, maintenance service cost histories, preventative maintenance schedules,
work order views, device reports and inventories.
When it comes to parts procurement, TriMedx is a leader. Our
seasoned sourcing specialists manage the parts purchases and invoices for more than 8,000 purchase orders on a monthly basis
giving us bulk purchasing power to obtain the best part for each
repair based on quality, service cost and uptime requirements.
Through TriMedx’s dedicated Regulatory Compliance team,
customers receive expert regulatory guidance for all devices in
the hospital inventory. Our regulatory expertise equips TriMedx
customers with information necessary to adhere to ever-changing
regulatory environment. This dedicated team also facilitates the
instant communication of all electronic, safety recalls and alert
notices that impact the hospital’s equipment.
Can you discuss the future of
Clinical Engineering Excellence?
Comprehensive lifecycle management is critical to the clinical engineering success of hospitals in the future. TriMedx has developed a comprehensive Medical Equipment Lifecycle program that
leverages our rich medical equipment data, expertise and resources in a way that supports and empowers clinical delivery strategies.
By fully utilizing these resources, we bring maximum value to the
planning, acquisition, usage and disposition of medical equipment
assets. In doing so, we ensure hospitals have the right technology
at the right time at the right cost in the right place with the right
relationship to deliver superior care to patients.
TriMedx customers benefit from in-depth, evidence-based and
vendor-neutral equipment lifecycle data collected from healthcare
providers for more than 12 years including: lifetime service cost,
uptime statistics, utilization, failure history and equipment life expectancy. This data provides total cost of ownership and helps to
evaluate whether a technology will improve patient safety, clinical outcomes and operational efficiencies. Through this analysis,
TriMedx actively assists in the management of aggregated capital
planning and provides real-time commitment and spending monitoring to keep costs low.
Once capital equipment is selected and purchased, it is important to successfully integrate that equipment into the system.
As part of the TriMedx Capital Asset Management Process, we
ensure that the facility site has been appropriately prepared and
that installation has minimal impact on day-to-day workflow, patient care and operations. We then assist with both clinical and
technical training, and ensure equipment service capabilities are
available.
Accurate equipment inventories, access to total cost of ownership data and strong clinical engineering involvement in the capital acquisition process are all requirements on the road to better
asset utilization. These are the hallmarks and differentiators of
the TriMedx program. Whether a hospital is looking to redeploy
assets or more effectively “triage” the capital acquisition planning
process and the rigor to that process, it cannot be replaced by the
latest wave of asset management software. Nor does one solution
fit all. TriMedx works to understand the specific objectives around
asset utilization and design a process with the appropriate technology to reach those goals.
One of the valuable outcomes of Comprehensive Lifecycle Management is the extension of the capital equipment lifecycle by redeploying equipment within the system. By incorporating a technology replacement plan for each facility, purchases can be planned
and implemented to maximize equipment usefulness.
However, at the end of the lifecycle, a determination must be
made as to the best method of liquidation. TriMedx utilizes our
established, retired medical equipment management program,
which assists in the sale of retired equipment separate from the
purchase of a new item, maximizing profit. On average, this program offers more than 20% premium over existing hospital-managed solutions.
TriMedx
5451 Lakeview Parkway S Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46268
Toll-free: 877-TriMedx / 877-874-6339 • www.trimedx.com
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