by
Diana Bradley, Staff Writer | December 28, 2011
From the December 2011 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“They haven’t created a better way to move a CT scanner; you still need to go in there, jack it up and roll it out the door,” South said. “If they make a magic wand to wave over large medical equipment to move it into the truck, I’ll be the first one to buy it. Until then, men have to go in there and physically prepare it the same way they always did.”
While there’s yet to be a magic wand, there have been improvements aimed at handling larger, more fragile pieces of medical equipment, including lift gates within vans, portable power pallet jacks and roll-a-lifts. But South reflected that the most important technological updates relate to communication.
“Communication efficiency is important because everything in this industry is such short notice,” said South.
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iPhone applications now enable those in the sector to scan bar coded assets onsite at pickup and upload the data; if the asset is damaged, the driver can take a photograph with the phone and the image will assign itself to that particular asset ID. Craters & Freighters have also been beta testing a GPS device that can be placed in crates.
“Now if a crate is ever misplaced on a dock, we have the ability to locate it,” said Barenberg.
Moved to tears: Top tips for buyers and sellers
Money, reputations and lives are at stake when relocating medical equipment. Buyers and sellers must be aware of and prepared for all associated risks. It is essential for companies that ship goods to perform a regular audit of insurance coverage; likewise, decision makers should request regular insurance certificates from transportation partners.
“Risk management is the least talked about, but has the biggest overall impact on all relocation services,” said Partridge. “Recent court actions have settled in favor of plaintiffs filing against shippers who have equipment on trucks that are involved in fatalities; due diligence can’t be overstated.”
All providers noted that customers’ pre-planning and timely notification not only aids in risk management, but also reduces costs.
“Overall transport and packaging costs could be reduced if more time was allocated,” said South. “When you have to react to get something done in a hurry, you typically have to charge the customer a bit more money to make space in the schedule to get it all done.”
While reducing costs is certainly in any customer’s interest, even more imperative is quality service. More equipment manufacturers and hospitals are choosing reputable suppliers over the least expensive option, according to Nick Giallanzo, chief operations officer and vice president of Remetronix, provider of medical equipment installation, logistics and services.
Marshall Shannon
Moving Company Business down ?
January 05, 2012 10:46
We were over burdened with shipping costs in the the last 2009 year and we have invested in two trucks to move our own goods and can do so on an average savings of nearly 40% over private carriers and nearly 60% over so called MEDICAL TRANSPORT SPECIALISTS.
The fact is the MARKET could not bear shippers charging 8-300% times more than freight carriers for overnight shipping, but those days are gone as now we can hot shot our own loads and save 60% of the costs associated and during these times saving 60% of expense costs are a big deal.
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