ENDOSCOPE GUIDE
Caveat Endo: 10 Tips for targeting an ISO
How to make the right decisions regarding third-party repair companies
by Derek Lashua, Spectrum Surgical Instruments Corp.
S
electing a third-party repair com- and travel is possible, schedule a site visit service and repair. This should be com-
pany to service your endoscopic with the vendor to tour their repair facil- pleted quarterly with documentation.
devices may be challenging but ity. This will shed a lot of light on the
shouldn’t have to be a tough choice. Here service company and will allow you to 5. Reporting capabilities
are 10 ways to do the right thing. quickly see for yourself, face-to-face, if a If it is not documented then it did not
company makes the grade. happen. The third-party repair vendor
1. Quality assurance should provide full-service reports docu-
With little to no standards governing 3. Complimentary education menting specific repairs performed and
third-party repair companies, it is impor- A vendor should be able to provide CE- recommendations for future service. Re-
tant to thoroughly evaluate your repair approved educational porting should be pro-
vendor to ensure patient safety and en- programs at no charge vided by the vendor
force bottom-line savings. Seek a repair to you. While often on a monthly or quar-
vendor with ISO certification (Interna- overlooked, educa- terly basis and reflect
tional Organization for Standardization), tional programs are a complete history of
specifically ISO 9001:2000, which is most one of the most effec- repairs, which is im-
pertinent to the endoscope repair indus- tive ways to reduce en- portant to identify re-
try. ISO certification requires a substan- doscope repair costs. pair trends and poten-
tial investment on the part of the repair Combining education tial “lemons” in need
vendor and establishes that the highest and training on the re- Photo Courtesy Spectrum Surgical of replacement. This
quality assurance levels will be met. Re- pair process helps to also allows you to hold
quest to see the company’s certification drive down the cost of surgical instru- the service provider accountable by
and manual of procedures. Additional cer- ment repairs. By teaching the clinical and tracking repair costs to a specific scope.
tifications such as ISO 13485:2003 (medi- sterile processing departments preventa- An example of an easy-to-use reporting
cal devices) and ASQ CQI (American So- tive maintenance techniques (including and tracking system is Spectrum’s new
ciety for Quality, Certified Quality Inspec- leak-testing certification) minor repairs Repair-Tracker, which provides confi-
tor Certification) as implemented by Spec- are discovered before they become ma- dential, real-time, Internet-based track-
trum Surgical Instruments, further verifies jor. A repair vendor should teach key in- ing of endoscope repair status, repair
that the quality requirements of the cus- strument inspection points, inspection progress and history.
tomer are being met. Your vendor should techniques, proper cleaning and handling
also maintain a full inventory of new parts. and the proper use of brushes. This edu- 6. No-cost common loaners
This allows the service provider to per- cation can further reduce liability on the The most commonly used scopes should
form major as well as minor repairs, re- facility by improving cleaning and infec- be available as loaners at no cost. While a
sulting in quicker turnaround time, and tion control procedures. large inventory of loaners is appreciated,
reduced frequency of repairs — ultimately note however that if a vendor were to
reducing costs. 4. On-location preventive have all models of scopes available, this
maintenance would drastically increase the cost to the
2. Avoid the middleman It is important to implement a no-charge, end-user. It is also important for the ven-
When partnering with an endoscope re- on-location preventative maintenance dor to be able to provide certified pre-
pair vendor it is important to find out if program to diagnose minor repairs be- owned endoscopes at a cost savings. For
the third-party company is conducting the fore they become major repairs. Your re- example, if a service is getting busy and
repairs themselves or are pair vendor should thor- dollars are not available to purchase a
they merely a middle- oughly evaluate the condi- replacement scope under capital budget,
man? With hundreds of tion of your current endo- the repair vendor should be able to pro-
third-party endoscope re- scope inventory, identifying vide a certified pre-owned scope as a re-
pair companies in the in- potential problem areas. pair/exchange.
dustry, many smaller They should record each
companies will broker re- make, model, and serial 7. Liability insurance
pairs to a larger company, number. Recommendations Unfortunately many third-party repair
resulting in multiple should come in the form of a vendors are small, often one-man opera-
mark-ups, inconsistencies detailed report to the cus- tions, running out of a home office, ga-
in quality, turnaround tomer, documenting poten- rage or basement, and that simply cannot
time, cost, accountability, tial issues, no issues present, afford liability insurance. Always ask to
and in a worst-case sce- or severe issues with imme- see a documented, updated certificate of
nario — liability. If time diate need for removal from liability insurance that meets coverage
Photo Courtesy Spectrum Surgical
44 November 2009 • HEALTHCARE PURCHASING NEWS www.hpnonline.com
0911-Scope Guide-shorrt.pmd 44 10/13/2009, 5:12 PM
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