Strategically Evaluating Depot Repair

Challenge

Finding the right balance between what a clinical engineering team should be trained to fix, what they should send out, and what can and should be fixed in-house, can be challenging. The clinical engineering team at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital maintains 50,000 pieces of equipment. When they evaluate what to send out for depot repair and what to fix in-house, risk, warranty and operational efficiency all play a role in this important decision.

“The tools that PartsSource provides has opened up some doors, in particular since we have 24/7 shifts. When we do have a problem outside of normal business hours, PartsSource is available and allows our team to continue moving forward on repairs.”

Rodger Abbott Biomed Manager

Solution

With more than 35 team members, Cincinnati Children’s historically has not used third-party repair services. However, after going through a value initiative process looking for ways to save money without sacrificing quality, they identified high-volume, low-risk depot repairs that would allow their team to increase service and response time for other repairs and help deliver on their promise of world-class patient care.

Using a modality they determined was a good fit to send out, Cincinnati Children’s selected PartsSource Depot Repair to trial and error their outsourcing. “PartsSource has absolutely met our expectations for Depot Repair,” said Rodger Abbott, Biomed Manager at Cincinnati Children’s.

“The tools that PartsSource provides has opened up some doors, in particular since we have 24/7 shifts. When we do have a problem outside of normal business hours, PartsSource is available and allows our team to continue moving forward on repairs.” While one modality sent through PartsSource for Depot Repair may not show immediate value per repair, Glenn Schneider, Director of Clinical Engineering for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, views the big picture. “Sending out high volume, low-risk equipment has tremendous value. And capturing the data about the repair and having it all in one place can provide great insight that we look forward to using to help us make decisions moving forward.”

Using a modality, they determined was a good fit to send out, Cincinnati Children’s selected PartsSource Depot Repair to trial and error their outsourcing. Cincinnati Children’s is now evaluating other modalities for PartsSource Depot Repair.