Trends in medical equipment service

Driven by the recent emphasis on cost containment in the healthcare industry as a whole, hospitals, manufacturers, and service providers have been spurred to try to find ways to reduce their costs and increase their revenues. As a result of the measures taken to achieve these goals, the medical equipment service industry has been experiencing a period of rapid change. In this environment, traditional alternatives for servicing medical equipment are being challenged, and new alternatives are being developed. The changes occurring in this industry are of vital interest to clinical engineers and technicians because it is those changes that will determine the future role of these professionals in the hospital. While such technology experts will not become obsolete-the reliance on medical technology to provide optimal healthcare will certainly continue in the United States and throughout the rest of the developed world-the roles of these experts could very likely change. As hospitals focus more narrowly on their core functions, noncore functions such as servicing and managing technology will come under scrutiny as possible candidates for outsourcing to reduce the hospital's administrative responsibilities and cut its cost burden. In this article, we review the recent past of the medical equipment service industry and describe some current trends that will play a role in shaping the future of this industry. We also discuss how the changes currently taking place will likely affect the viability of in-house clinical engineering departments. In our discussion, we spotlight service issues related to radiology equipment because (1) this equipment dominates service expenditures and (2) the servicing of these devices has spawned some of the changes causing hospitals to reexamine how all their medical equipment is being serviced and managed.