by
John W. Mitchell, Senior Correspondent | June 04, 2018
From the June 2018 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
Thanks to careful planning and an expert team, the project was successfully completed.
The independent service value proposition
One of the best things a facility can do prior to contacting anyone about a potential install/deinstall project is conduct a cursory inspection of the space. Chad Jones, CEO at Buckeye Medical Solutions, an Ohio-based company that specializes in install/deinstall projects, reports that three out of five times they discover issues that weren’t considered when initially planning the project.
The advantage of an independent operation is being able to provide more competitive pricing than some of the larger companies and OEMs. According to Jones, one healthcare company was quoted $68,000 for a project he was able to complete for $27,000.
“That same company has stopped using OEMs and has had us do 17 projects for them,” he said. “In my 20-plus years of doing this type of work, I've been to all the OEM's for training and certifications.”
The Emory Proton Therapy Center in Atlanta tapped
Remetronix for its cyclotron installation.
Brandon Transfer & Storage, a Florida-based moving company with a specialty in medical equipment, takes pride in delivering what their healthcare clients are asking for, even when the circumstances are less than ideal.
"We've taken an MR magnet out on one day's notice,” said Steve Lewis, an owner of Brandon, who has 50 years of experience in the family business. “We worked around emergency rooms with ambulances coming and going with cranes. We're pretty accommodating about what needs to be done.”
Lewis, who estimates the company does one or two install/deinstalls per month, doesn’t advocate for a one-day turnaround. He thinks it’s better to space things out so that you don’t have all the contractors on the site at one time but allow each one to do their job well.
Unfortunately, all the time and space in the world is irrelevant when a provider fails to connect the dots on issues preventing the relocation of a particular system, which was the case on a recent East Coast assignment for Buckeye Medical.
“A few months back, we had a customer reach out to us for a deinstall of a PET/CT to relocate it to their new facility without a prior site inspection,” recalled Jones. “We dispatched our team to the site, and upon arrival the first thing we discovered was that the current owner had the original freight elevator removed and two passenger elevators put in its place.”
