He added that many of the biomedical equipment technicians at Cedars Sinai are considered hybrids, which means they have some IT or computer science background.

“I’ve been saying for five years that HTMs need to have IT training,” said Harning. “The more they understand networks, how equipment is hooked up to it and how to troubleshoot that equipment; they can separate whether it’s a real network issue or if it’s an issue with the unit itself.”


Partnering with OEMs can benefit in-house HTM departments
While working more with IT represents one major change taking place with in-house HTM departments, there’s another shift taking place with the rate of interaction they are experiencing with OEMs and other service providers.

Increasingly, equipment manufacturers are making a priority of bringing competitive service solutions to the facilities that purchase their equipment. By offering customizable contracts, companies like Canon Medical Systems, which offers InTouch In-House Support to customers with robust internal capabilities, are encouraging hospitals to expand their in-house imaging workforce while referring more significant repairs and service needs to the OEMs.

In many cases, this formula is successful because the in-house teams receive first-hand training from the companies that designed the equipment. At the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation conference in June, for example, Siemens had its customers rate their own quality of service and they view themselves as delivering the same level of repair quality as Siemens’ engineers.

Harning mentioned surgical robot manufacturer, Intuitive Surgical, as another example of a partner that has been accommodating to his in-house team. “Any tidbits that they can give us and work with our staff to provide a better service in-house and help curb those nuisance costs, that’s going to help everybody.”

Facilities are seeking one provider for all their servicing needs as opposed to having a multitude of service contracts for different pieces of equipment, according to GE. One way it works to meet that need is through training on multi-vendor equipment at GE Healthcare Institute in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where virtual reality and simulation training are part of the educational process for equipment stakeholders including non-GE in-house service teams.

Last November, Philips launched Technology Maximizer, a cross-modality program designed to boost the clinical capabilities and performance of imaging equipment through proactive upgrades to ensure the software is up to date. The tool runs in tandem with its existing RightFit service contracts, which is its own multi-vendor service solution.

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