HealthCare Business News spoke with Lorna Young, Senior Director, Market Research, IMV Medical Information Division - a recognized leader in market research for the medical imaging and clinical diagnostic instruments markets - about some of the key results from IMV's extensive report: "2013 Diagnostic Imaging Equipment Service Arrangements in U.S. Hospitals." This 250 page document is a detailed analysis of the diagnostic imaging market segment, and the Ms. Young provided the three key graphs, which include data on:

- Department Priorities in Managing Imaging Equipment for 2013-2015
- Imaging Service Contract Priorities for 2013-2015
- Modalities Which Use Third-Party Replacement Parts

OEM, ISO, In-house Service Spend
When the respondents were asked to quantify their imaging service spending in 2013, 70 percent said it was for "full on-site coverage," from either an OEM or ISO; 17 percent said it was for "shared service with in-house biomed as the 'first call' with some on-site service," 6 percent said it was "for in-house biomed as first call without on-site service," and 3 percent said it as for "parts-only expenditures" - the remaining 4 percent was for "other service-related spending."

Multi-Vendor Contracts
Of all service contracts, 47 percent of the facilities said they had a multi-vendor contract. If that numbers seems high, keep in mind that the term 'multi-vendor' contract can apply the equipment of a single modality, say the general radiology equipment in a facility, or the ultrasound equipment, and not necessarily all imaging equipment. General radiology, incidentally, is ranked number one in utilization of multi-vendor contracts. About 32 percent of multi-vendor contracts are issued to OEMs, and about 15 percent are ISO multi-vendor contracts.

Spare Parts
Among the other highlights of the report are these statistics: Of the respondents queried, 55 percent said 'yes' when asked if they ever bought 3rd party replacements. The modality for which 3rd party parts were most often used was mobile X-rays, with 38 percent. Additionally, 16 percent used them for CT third-party parts for CT scanners, while only 9 percent bought them for MRs.

The Respondents
A total of 243 respondents participated in the IMV-hosted online survey in April-May 2013, including hospital radiology/imaging administrators (66 percent) and biomedical engineering BMET/managers/directors (34 percent).

For More Information
To learn more about the IMV Medical Information Division, or more information on the 2013 report, please visit www.imvinfo.com