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How can HTM and OEMs work together most effectively?

by Lauren Dubinsky, Senior Reporter | May 06, 2019
HTM
From the May 2019 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine


The evolving dynamic between OEMs and HTMs
As medical instrumentation becomes more sophisticated experts agree that the partnership between OEMs and HTMs will become more complex and should be stronger to be successful.

According to AAMI’s McGeary, it’s going to become more important for the hospital and OEM to sit down to find out what the hospital has for available talent and what the OEM can offer for services.

“Both parties can see where there are gaps and then try to structure some support models to help fill those gaps instead of making the engagement just a transaction,” said AAMI’s Piepenbrink. “OEMs need to think about how they can help organizations with that and try to iron out some of those issues in advance.”

It will also become more important for the HTM departments to have relationships with field service managers and to know who their points of contacts are, such as the regional manager that covers their territory.

“As an in-house HTM, you should make as many relationships as you can within the OEM organizations and leverage them when necessary,” said McGeary. “If the one field service engineer that everyone loves and counts on suddenly wins the lottery and never comes back to work, you will have another point of contact and strong relationship to call upon.”

As part of nurturing those relationships, McGeary recommends that HTM managers and regional managers sit down to a meeting once per quarter to discuss all of the service calls and how long each piece of equipment was down for.

If a hospital has a preventative maintenance service contract, she said it’s especially important to meet with regional OEM management to make sure that the PMs are done on time, to understand what the findings were and to verify recalls and updates are being done per contract.

“You need a mutual partnership and we all need to view each other as equals,” said McGeary. “At the end of the day, it's all about ensuring the patients are getting the best care possible and that the equipment is working.”

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