Assets in the healthcare environment represent a significant expense to any organization; second only to labor costs. Managing these assets and their associated expenses requires a combination of expertise, experience and proven tools.
Serving as a Multi-Vendor Service provider for 20 years, Philips has worked closely with HTM teams to help take care of the complexities of clinical asset management so patient flow remains on track and clinicians can focus on delivering the best in patient care.
TechNation magazine quizzed Philips on the latest in asset management and new developments announced at the AAMI 2016 Conference & Expo in Tampa, Florida.
Q: What is asset management?
PHILIPS: At a basic level, managing assets begins with an accurate inventory and the ability to track the service history and related cost for each individual unit of equipment. But, more importantly, asset management is about identifying and delivering strategic actions to optimize your clinical asset services and operations.
Q: How can Philips Multi-Vendor Services help an HTM department?
PHILIPS: We help optimize clinical assets, optimize work teams and optimize engagement with their organization’s leadership. We help clean up asset inventory data and get our InfoView tool up and running so that the HTM department can self-manage all of their clinical assets independently. We also offer support services where we work side-by-side in a shared service capacity. And, if required, we have the expertise to lead an entire biomed program with on-site management.
Q: Tell us more about your InfoView tool?
PHILIPS: Built on a leading edge, cloud-based platform, InfoView provides an integrated solution for asset management, service and work order management, preventive and corrective maintenance, and real-time reporting to manage clinical assets from “inception to retirement.” After performing the task of initializing your organization’s asset data into the InfoView system via our standardization and formatting protocol, InfoView provides a centralized repository for tracking and managing all relevant asset information including location, service history, costs, contract and warranty status as well as replacement forecasting. The tool automatically creates work orders for routine, preventive maintenance based on both AEM and OEM equipment maintenance strategies. For unscheduled corrective maintenance, work orders are quickly and easily created and routed to the appropriate Service Engineer. Nurses and other clinicians are able to request service, and check the status of existing requests through the online service request portal which immediately notifies HTM staff on their mobile devices. Engineers have real-time access to data, enabling them to quickly locate assets, view work orders and tasks, update work order status, materials, labor hours, comments and more.
InfoView can also track engineer training, easily identifying which technicians are trained on what devices and where technical training gaps are.
InfoView is totally scaleable and customizable to support your hospital’s unique processes. Our tool allows for easy extracting of relevant/actionable information through simple-to-create reports and dashboard that can automatically and proactively be delivered to biomeds, department managers, or the C-Suite.
Q: How can asset management assist with compliance issues?
PHILIPS: The robust data tracking and real-time reporting capabilities delivered by InfoView provide you with comprehensive documentation support for associated Joint Commission and other regulatory compliance requirements.
Q: How else can InfoView help maintain medical equipment?
PHILIPS: InfoView provides real-time full transparency on the status/readiness of clinical assets to everyone involved in supporting the patient flow. For example, we have customers use large screens in their surgery center to communicate key readiness data like work order status, recent history, availability of mission critical assets, and whether or not a BMET is currently on site. Real-time asset information enables the entire staff to make immediate decisions on how to best manage patient workflows accordingly.
Q: Can you tell me more about your participation announced at the AAMI 2016 Conference & Expo?
PHILIPS: We shared details of our new development platform that allows for deployment of InfoView across hundreds of sites. We demonstrated the capabilities of InfoView that now boast over 150 data management features. Enhanced features include expanded service requests and service event tracking, seamless parts ordering, benchmarking and capital planning, and expanded data analytics.
Q: How else can Philips help with biomedical services?
PHILIPS: The Philips Biomedical Services Program is far more than a repair service. It’s a comprehensive program for asset planning and management. The goal is to reduce equipment life cycle costs and maximize the organization’s capital investments.
For additional information about Philips, visit: www.philips.com/mvs.
