Does GE’s market leadership denote the end of discrete clinical technology service providers, or signal our industry’s evolution into leading healthcare’s technology-managed future? Outspoken executives gathered at the annual service industry panel discussion held during HealthTech 2001 to share their opinions about the future of healthcare technology management, service and support.

imageIt’s an industry that is confounding in its complexity, exciting in its diversity, bewildering in its opportunities lost and opportunities found. It certainly is an exciting industry and while we may complain about it, deep down, we all enjoy being part of healthcare technology management, service and support. At the service industry panel session held during HealthTech 2001, there was an animated discussion about harnessing our excitement. Always remembering, this is an industry. It is a business.

Bob Larkin (Editor, 24×7): Can you say: “Hi we are Patriot Medical Technologies and we are an ‘X’ company”?
Jim Caporali (Regional Director, Operations, Patriot Medical Technologies): I guess if you have to fill in the “X”, we tend to be more asset management than anything else. Comprehensive in-house service management programs are the majority of what we provide our customers. However, we do a lot of other things. We do labor-based models, we do time-and-materials-based models. There are so many hospitals of so many varying sizes, that it is not a cookie-cutter fit.

Larkin: That sounds like a horrendous business model because each customer program must be customized. Is there any way to drive consolidation of the choices?
Caporali: I don’t think so. I don’t think that there’s a way to drive consolidation. You can’t expect a 75-bed hospital located in a rural area to have the same needs as a 1,200-bed metropolitan facility. What we can bring to the customer is the advantage of providing those different types of programs. That way, if we see any issues in their programs, we can bring alternatives and suggestions and try to help them build a better model to fulfill their needs.

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