By Jim Fedele
IÂ am certainly feeling the impact of the biomed labor shortage, recruiting has become a rather large part of my job these days. This is affecting all aspects of health care. Third-party servicers, in-house departments and even OEMs are struggling to keep positions filled. Recently, I got to enjoy some justice on an OEM who would not sell us a part to allow us to make a very simple repair. However, thanks to a staffing issue, we were able to prove what cooperation looks like in our new world.
I got a call from my lead imaging technician asking for help with a vendor that would not sell us parts. The outside case of the unit was damaged and needed to be replaced. My tech explained that the case can be replaced easily by removing a few screws and would only take a few minutes to complete. The company said that only their tech could replace the case and the cost would be an additional $6,000 for the labor. Because our supply chain people are exceptionally good at influencing our vendors, I told him it would not be a problem to solve this issue. I called my supply chain contact who manages the business category and explained the situation. She said she would get to work on solving this for us.Â
It was not long before I got a call back from her with unwelcome news. She explained to me that because my tech wasn’t trained on the unit, they would not sell us the parts. However, my tech is trained on the unit, before we hired him, he worked for the vendor. The negotiation went back and forth between us and the vendor, ultimately the vendor discounted the labor for the installation but would not sell us the parts. Their reason was the tech had received the training five years ago and the units were now quite a bit different. An argument that I would have understood for any other situation but not for a cracked case. We cut them a purchase order and scheduled the replacement.
As we all are aware COVID-19 has also challenged the ability to get things done in a prompt fashion. The lengthy quarantining and infectious nature of the disease can quickly cut a department’s staff in half. Factor in the labor shortage, and it feels like all of us are struggling to get things done. I am also witnessing the OEMs struggling to meet their own service contract requirements on time. As luck would have it, a few days after the OEM declared they weren’t selling us parts, one of their units failed that was under contract with us. The unit was in high demand and our customer needed it fixed immediately. We called the OEM, requested urgent service and waited for the call back. The service tech called and explained that he had COVID and would not be able to get to us for eight days. He explained that his back up would not be able to get to us for a couple of days as well. They then asked if my tech, whose training was not adequate to put covers on, could check out the unit. My mind was blown on how fast they pivoted knowing what they just did to us a few days earlier. However, because of the urgency of the situation my tech checked it out and was able to fix it.
Thanks to this situation our negotiation position has changed with this company. I am now using this story when working with OEMs that have not been willing to sell us parts or train our people. I do not see an end to the labor shortage we are currently experiencing. I know in our company alone 18% are age 60 and older. I have been having conversations with our more cooperative OEM and they are experiencing the same issue. I am hopeful that this forces some long awaited cooperation with OEMs in regards to servicing equipment.
– Jim Fedele, CBET, is the senior director of clinical engineering for UPMC. He manages six Susquehanna Health hospitals. He has 30 years of HTM experience and has worked for multiple service organizations.
