By David Witt
Best Practices, a term as old as our industry, remains the core of who we are and the assurance of what is expected with our service delivery strategy to the mutual benefit of the patient, the client and the service provider.
Competition within our field began largely with cost and quick response on-site. In our industry’s efforts to demonstrate ourselves as a viable alternative to a manufacturer’s more costly service support the term, “third party” was used, in my opinion, to distinguish the difference between non-OEM and OEM while portraying non-OEM as inferior whether or not the “third party” was OEM-trained or a former employee of a manufacturer.
I have known many who, after gaining experience from manufacturers or upon leaving the military (which often sent their technicians to OEM courses), would create their own service support business. Often hospitals and other medical facilities, such as same-day surgery centers and dental offices, were the mainstay of these smaller privately owned businesses. They largely specialized in anything from preventive maintenance visits to anesthesia, ventilator, sterilizer, operating tables, laboratory equipment, radiology devices or even laser repairs. There were no shortage of skill sets at a nominal cost and each small business normally remained within the confines of its medical community. They were often limited to the hours they could personally offer service to the client. Life was good and service support was diverse in those years between the 1970s and 1990s.
We have since developed into a significantly viable and more global entity. Competition remains strong and sometimes heated between service companies and OEMs. However, in the last decade and a half, some of the major manufacturers, primarily of radiology equipment, have entered the realm of third-party service. Called multi-vendor support, these major players in specialty fields now enter into an area formerly advertised to their clientele as substandard. I say to them, “Welcome!”
By entering into the HTM service support theatre, our “third party” industry has inadvertently received a kind of validation by those who used to scorn our “pesty” efforts to deny revenue to the “big guns” of the medical manufacturing industry. The playing field has been leveled! When they purchase privately owned companies it is to increase their clientele. The resulting revenue and increased employment and knowledge base adds to our now much more diverse field.
With few exceptions, the knowledge, parts, tools and test equipment needed to perform even major corrective maintenance on complex devices is more easily available. Our field is much more knowledgeable and able to support major medical centers across the nation. Competition remains but there is an added element which has been evolving the past many years known as best practices. These best practices go beyond technical ability to encompass an area which is not always met with favor by those who see this as yet another hindrance to their efforts to demonstrate technical prowess to themselves, their employer and clients.
ISO 13485 is a collection of best practices covering everything from cleanliness and organization to the developing of what I have come to appreciate as excellent policies, procedures, methods of accountability, measurements and processes. It is all aimed at, among other things, providing the patient with the best possible opportunity to receive uncompromised treatment while also affording the safest and most efficient work environment known in the HTM industry. We have grown from a core of able technicians to a major industry needing a broad spectrum of non-technical professionals. There are tiers of oversight and innovation from technician to regional, national and international leaders of mega corporations which create employment opportunities and competitive wages and benefits unknown until the last 20 years. It could be said that this phenomenon may have come from, in part, those industries which are now part of the HTM enterprise.
Best practices will be more deeply discussed in future articles. Nevertheless, best practices offer countless possibilities to achieve even higher planes of excellence in a career field which for me began in 1978 when best practices were defined by personal ability, integrity and honesty. Those are the things that benefitted the fledgling vendor more than the client and ultimately the patient. To entrepreneurs – many who worked out of cars, vans, garages and rented warehouse space – I have the deepest respect, appreciation and admiration. In my career, I worked for three giants in the field. Their names are Mike, Randy and Brian. Their businesses were purchased and through larger entities their work continues; because of vision, determination and best practices.
I remember an old cigarette commercial when smoking was in vogue; “… You’ve come a long way baby …” was the catch phrase. Well folks, we certainly have!
– David Witt has more than 40 years of experience in the international field as a technician, instructor and advisor. He is currently the director of clinical engineering at a major Las Vegas hospital.
