by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | September 03, 2015
From the September 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“People don’t realize how important it is until they don’t have it,” Schultz says. “It might be a few dollars a month, but if you take into consideration that you can lose thousands of dollars worth of helium in a weekend, it kind of pays for itself.” While Schultz highly recommends remote monitoring, facilities can at the very least have an employee check and write down the helium level and magnet pressure each day, and report any problems to their service provider.
“Instead of waiting for a problem, they should designate the radiology manager or first tech that comes in in the morning,” Schultz says. “They’re pretty busy there, I understand that, but it’s important to keep an eye on your equipment. It’s an investment. Without the chiller running, the compressor won’t run, and then in turn the coldhead won’t run. It’s like the heartbeat.”
Both OEMs and third-party service providers offer remote monitoring, and while the benefits of staying on top of problems are clear, what may not be clear are the advantages of going with one provider over another.
David Schuetz, director of service business management for MR at Siemens Healthcare, says an OEM like Siemens can offer a depth and breadth of monitoring information that is lacking with third-party solutions. OEMs not only have the advantage of a team of engineers with a high level of experience, but he says an OEM such as Siemens can offer distinguishing features such as real-time monitoring, which is often predictive and proactive.
“Technology moves so fast that unless you’re here getting the continuous training we’re giving to our people, you’re really not on the cutting edge and you’re risking additional downtime,” Schuetz says. Siemens tracks the health of the entire cooling system, trending temperatures and water flow rates over time. “This allows us to be more proactive with our service delivery,” Schuetz says. “Lower price points are alluring, but what you’re giving up is peace of mind.”
Along with monitoring helium levels and the chiller system, Oxford Instruments also monitors incoming power, so if electricity dips they can tell if that’s causing a problem, says John Vartanian, Oxford’s director of business development and formerly chief executive officer of Medical Imaging Resources, which Oxford acquired in May.
Vartanian says that as an independent service organization owned by a manufacturer, Oxford provides a good value and is growing the ability to monitor more systems. “We’re a service organization that helped invent the superconducting magnet,” Vartanian says. “There are a lot of independent companies and they’re not bad people, but they don’t have the quality control. They certainly don’t have ISO processes that guarantee to the customers that things are being done in the right way.”
