Scanning the Radiology Department for Cost Cutting Strategies

Maintaining a Radiology department requires specialized skills. To keep costs down, hospitals should consider outsourcing to experts.

Important to the Health of the Hospital

A busy Radiology (or Diagnostic Imaging) department is extremely valuable to the financial well-being of many hospitals. Diagnostic testing makes up about 10% of the average patient's bill, and costs are on the rise (increasing by a third from 2000 to 2005) as advances in technology give doctors cuttingedge, non-invasive new ways to make diagnoses. According to Modern Healthcare, in 2006 approximately 9,000 new imaging devices were purchased by hospitals nationwide for a total cost of almost $6 billion. To make these advanced tests possible, the technology driving Radiology equipment is constantly improving, bringing a new level of complexity to the maintenance plan. The Radiology department alone can take up to an estimated 80% of the total cost of medical equipment maintenance throughout the hospital.

Increase Uptime, Decrease Expense

But the failure of any one of these imaging devices means a large loss of income while the revenue-generating device sits unused. Another large cost that won't show up on the books is the huge hit to patient satisfaction resulting from patients experiencing long waits due to a down imaging machine, or worse, a patient that arrives for a test, is turned away, and has to reschedule. A hospital literally cannot afford to allow its Radiology equipment to be "out of order."

It can be challenging for a hospital with decreasing financial resources to maintain 100% uptime of its imaging equipment and still maintain service quality. To reduce costs, hospitals need to prioritize new equipment purchases and optimize the devices they already have, possibly even moving underutilized equipment from one area of the hospital to another (or from one hospital in a system to another). The most important goal is to increase the life expectancy of costly imaging devices. Overhauling existing equipment can be much more cost effective than ordering new devices or replacing parts one-by-one as they fail. To stay ahead of equipment problems, it is vital to have experienced maintenance personnel with a well-organized and executed preventive maintenance program to identify issues early and avoid failures.

Reaching Out for Help

While many hospitals believe that hiring on-staff technicians to service imaging equipment will have the benefit of keeping costs low, it is very difficult to maintain the required level of expertise in-house. It can even be challenging to find an outside company with technicians who have the advanced skill set necessary to service the different imaging modalities properly. But the right service provider can bring the technical experience most hospitals lack to provide a comprehensive maintenance solution.

Crothall Clinical Equipment Services offers many advantages over an in-house Radiology department:

• Reduce wait time for service requests (with guaranteed response times)
• Develop thorough preventive maintenance plan - significantly reducing unscheduled downtime, and the need for redundant backup equipment
• Cap service expenses to help hospitals manage their equipment budgets
• Require minimal administration by hospital
• Share best practices through wide network of support
• Present complete reporting and benchmarking to ensure compliance
• Invest in ongoing training of technicians on diverse and complex modalities
• Offer vendor-neutral assistance with purchasing decisions to help provide dependability and lower repair costs by choosing the most reliable equipment
• Provide technicians trained in both Radiology and networking principles to address increasing reliance on software

A well-executed outsourcing agreement will go a long way to reduce the costs of repair, ongoing maintenance, and reordering of equipment. Crothall has proven experience delivering on our promises. At 200-bed Dameron Hospital in Stockton, CA, Crothall took over maintenance of the Radiology department. As a result, Dameron has saved money, stretched the life of its CT scanner, and now has a full-time Imaging Engineer on site to rapidly respond to any problems. Director of Diagnostic Imaging Thomas Beck remarks, "I can now rest assured, knowing that service on the scanner and all other imaging equipment is in good hands."