One of the worst feelings in the world is that of not knowing. Do you go left, or do you go right? Do you do something,  or do you not do it?

In the world of biomedical engineering, it could be not knowing when something is going to break down. And of course, when something does break down, it will probably be at the most inconvenient time, as that always tends to happen.

This is the true story of a Surgical Director for a major health authority

For quite some time, frustration grew as department heads were frequently going to the Director with requests for new surgical tables, as the existing ones were consistently breaking down.

The Director had his budget. He was not expecting these requests. But month after month, they came in.

To buy new tables every time they thought that a new table was called for was going to be expensive. His budget would definitely take a hit.

What Are The Options

The Director’s biggest concern was that he had no way of telling what tables would be next. In the next 4 months, would he have 4 requests for new tables? Or none at all?

He needed to know this information in order to plan ahead and allocate his budget accordingly. Did he put aside $20,000 for repairs? Or, did he put aside $150,000 to buy new surgical tables?

Eventually, he came across the solution – the Meditek InSight Equipment Assessments program.

The outcome of the InSight program would make life easier for himself, but also for the many biomedical engineers that were the ones responsible for servicing the surgical tables.

A Day In The Life Of A Biomedical Engineer

We all know how busy a day in the life of a Biomed Engineer can be. Equipment from all departments converging on the one with a multitude of problems, each one is more important than the other, and needing to be fixed last week.

In regards to what happened in this particular story, the Biomedical Engineers were put in a position where the scope of fixing went beyond the regular maintenance.

Departments from multiple facilities were sending their tables to Biomed for repair, when the repair required a surgical table specific technician, who has the proper tools and manuals. Without the proper tools or manuals at their disposal, the Biomeds were doing the best they could with what they had.

But, it wasn’t enough for a long-term solution.

Other challenges they faced, apart from the lack of specialized tools and manuals, were not knowing where or how to source the parts, who to call for guidance, and more in-depth technical knowledge, such as hydraulics.

When there were surgical tables breaking down every so often, the confidence that the surgical team could do their job without interruptions was diminishing.

The Biomedical team never knew when to expect the next one. And when the next one did come in, the pressure was on to get it fixed, as surgeries faced getting cancelled.

Taking A Look Inside

The Director needed to know what the current conditions of all the tables in the health authority were.

He needed to know that Table A from Facility XYZ was on its last legs and needed to be replaced. He needed to know that Table B from Facility ABC was still functional but would need some repair done within the next year.

That’s when Meditek was brought in to do an InSight inspection on all the tables in the entire health authority.

When all was said and done, Meditek came back with a fully detailed report on every single table, including photos that displayed its current inner and outer condition. The report included a section that indicated the date that it was likely that the table would be replaced.

Now knowing what he was up against, the Director, with the guidance of the Biomedical team, started the process of putting a tender together that would take care of this problem once and for all. Some of the tables were destined to be replaced by new ones, while other tables were to be remanufactured.

The idea to remanufacture some of the tables came directly from the fact that it was financially impossible to buy all brand new. With dozens of tables in need of repair or replacement, buying brand new would cost a fortune.

Alternatively, remanufacturing surgical tables can save up to 60% off the cost of new. It was a no-brainer.

To Conclude

Because the needs of the facilities crossed over brands and models, they were looking for a vendor that was familiar with all of them.

Meditek’s ReNew program, which started remanufacturing surgical tables in 1981, had seen basically every brand and model go through its process over the years. The program restores equipment to as-new condition and has a two-year all parts and labour warranty, which backs up the quality of the process.

Being a distributor and not a manufacturer, Meditek was in a unique position where they were not tied to just one brand.

For the tables that needed to be replaced with new, Meditek was able to accommodate this with its line of Skytron tables, a leading surgical table manufacturer.

This combination of having a multi-brand remanufacturing program, exclusive line of leading surgical tables, and decades of technical and logistical knowledge, were the successful formula for winning the tender. The result has been a health authority being able to revitalize its entire fleet of surgical tables by extending the life and value of each.

They have been able to significantly save capital budget dollars to use for other much-needed equipment. And Meditek has continued to provide a unique service that backs up the quality with its warranty.

Meditek InSight Program

Do you want to achieve similar success with your surgical tables? Our InSight program arms you the information you need to be able to plan for future maintenance and repair. Use InSight in conjunction with our ReNew program to save thousands or hundreds of thousands.