DOTmed Industry Sector Report: Medical Chiller Sales & Service

DOTmed Rapport de secteur industriel : Ventes et service médicaux de réfrigérateur

par Jean B. Grillo, Reporter | March 26, 2008

Sig Carlson agrees about regularly scheduled maintenance, but says it's very difficult to find quality repair people to do the work.

"Schools have eliminated a lot of the mechanical trade education they once offered high school students." Carlson says. "Today, you are really dependent on using people who don't know a lot about the product they're repairing."

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There are simple chillers, generally six to eight tons that represent about 75 percent of all medical applications. But then there are complex ones, 24 tons or more, with multiple compressors and separate chilling units, such as the Siemens 3.1 Tesla MRI. The latter requires only expert attention.

An inadequately maintained chiller can quit after only a few years. A well-maintained one can last "a lifetime."

"Adding more sensors to (detect) overload helps prolong chiller life," says Saeed Hashemi whose company, NASS Medical Image, does all service, repair, application and technical training for GE products and is based in Ontario, Canada.

While Legacy's King feels strongly that "mission critical" chillers ought to be purchased new "otherwise you're not going to get the same warranty, you're not really going to know a machine's past maintenance record," others such as Hasemi disagree. He says it's appropriate to rebuild a chiller and that it only makes economic sense to opt for new one, "when (the current one) is not capable of cooling to the minimum requirement."

NOTE: DOTmed.com has been involved in auctioning a number of chillers because frequently when the original equipment manufacturer sells the machine, they ask the hospital to buy the chiller separately. When the machine is sold or traded in, the hospital is sometimes left with chiller, and they have utilized the DOTmed Online Auctions to sell them.