If you've been considering an Endoscopy Service Agreement you're not alone. Many health care related entities across the country utilize service agreements to improve the quality of service for their patients, reduce their overall cost of maintenance while decreasing their financial and liability risks.

Endoscopy Instruments and equipment are not inexpensive. And while some minor maintenance might be able to be accomplished in-house if you have an individual in your employment who is tech savvy, major repairs and even scheduled maintenance you may want to leave to trained endoscopy equipment repair specialists. Here's just a few things to consider in that regard.

• Best Intentions: With just one overtightened replacement part or improperly installed hose or filter the costs of fixing the endoscopy equipment can sky rocket as the new damage may cost more than the original repair or maintenance would have cost by an expert.
• Delicate Parts: Some Endoscopy parts are rather delicate. A number of repair facilities have indicated that many, if not most of their service calls end up being handling issues. Mishandled parts by an untrained person during maintenance or repair of other parts can lead to the repair and or replacement of endoscopy equipment parts that didn't need to be repaired or replaced prior to the parts being mishandled.
• Downtime: In most cases, the real cost is downtime. A trained service technician will be able to get the maintenance or repairs done more quickly and efficiently than an untrained staff member as they've typically done the repair previously and know exactly what to expect and what the exact factory recommended procedures are to follow ensuring the best repair outcome. Looking for endoscopy repair technicians with years of experience under their belts may behoove you as experience repair technicians know how to get your equipment back in operation as quickly as possible. Keeping your endoscopy equipment in service during business hours is critical to the bottom line and your office's reputation.

Circumventing Endoscopy Equipment Repairs

The best way to manage repair costs is through avoiding the repairs in the first place!

Considering there are so many people in an office that handle endoscopy equipment, the odds of equipment being broken increases exponentially with each person added. Physicians, nurses, biomeds (Biomedical Equipment Technicians) and cleaning technicians all play a role and you may have even more steps with other staff members involved in your office.

Educate your staff

While formal training is great and companies like MedService Repair may offer In-Service Training that would meet your specific needs, a less formal method might be a great start helping to identify, improve and or circumvent some of your equipment repairs.

An Informal mock walk through of the process with all of the individuals who will handle the equipment might make great sense. It'll be important that whoever conducts this training understands how to encourage and delicately educate each of the staff members when step(s) in the process are identified that are not being done using best practices outlined by the original equipment manufacturer. Criticizing or singling out might cause more damage than you planned for.

The mock endoscopy process walk through should be done in its entirety. I.e., walk the entire crew through each of the steps so that every member of the staff who handles the equipment understands what each of the steps are even if they won't be involved in the those steps. This can help with staff members having a better understanding of each of the steps and how the steps they are involved in affect other steps that they are not involved in. This can improve the process dramatically making your internal processes more efficient and profitable.

The focus of the walk through should be to identify areas of improvement. You might find small tweaks that can be made in any of the processes that could extend the life of your endoscopy equipment. It might be as simple as how the scopes are hung, where they are hung, how they are cleaned or how they can be moved more carefully. Any of these examples could easily cause damage to a scope's lens or electronic components. Having more eyes and minds considering the current process might help you fine tune the process saving your company thousands of dollars in repair or replacement costs.

There are so many examples of small changes that can be made that might make an impact on your overhead. For instance, simply planning where a scope will be laid after use could save you from a repair or required replacement. For instance, placing a scope on a hard stainless-steel table invites damage to tips or could easily crack a lens. You might consider placing it on something softer like a surgical towel or something softer that can safely absorb impact and keep the instrument safe from damage.

And what about the AER (automated endoscopic reprocessor)? Many times, the AERs themselves can cause damage to scopes through mishandling. Going over safe methods of placing the scopes within the basins and avoiding the distal tip being caught and crushed when the devices lid is closed makes good sense. Often, showing how this can happen before it does can mitigate the problem from ever coming up at all.

Leak tests are another area that can significantly decrease the odds of much more expensive repairs being necessary. Due to endoscopes being flexible, the rubber within them can inadvertently tear over time. Catching the tear or hole during a visual inspection or during a leak test can save you thousands of dollars because If the scope were processed with the leak existing the fluid invasion would result in a much more expensive repair.

Once your employee training is implemented, it will also be necessary to implement a plan to train newly hired employees. Sometimes identifying the perfect staff member to handle this is easy based on your staff's input, level of knowledge and excitement displayed at the initial mock walk-though. You'd probably think it best to have the most knowledgeable person with regards to the endoscopic equipment to manage regular training and possibly handle refresher walk-throughs. But sometimes it makes even more sense to look for the person that has the best communication skills and knows how to gently encourage others and create excitement about the training sessions as long as they fully understand the topic.

If you'd like to discuss professional training for your office or an Endoscopy Service Contract, call MedService Repair at the number listed above today.