How do hospitals order equipment? How is equipment selection performed? Who writes the specifications? Do they each have their own procurement department? And, who makes sure the deliveries match the specifications? Need to know… - Jinx
The OP concerns the Purchasing & Receiving departments. My question (which I hope is not too far off topic) concerns the Personnel department: Why is it that if a person needs an Xray or Lab work on Friday evening, (unless it is a giant emergency) the patient has to wait almost 3 days until those departments open again on Monday? Why can’t they distribute they staff through the week more evenly?
I work at this hospital. There are no universal hospital rules about how such decisions are made.
Yes, they are purchased through a purchasing dept. Not only the operating specs, but the brand and model names as well, usually come from the medical departments based on their perceived needs. The department head usually directs an administrative person in denerating and tracking the paperwork
At Meriter, any purchase over $500 (a ridiculously low number) is a capital acquisition that must be a planned line item in someone’s budget.
Here’s a few examples of how it works (or doesn’t) here:
- You need an instrument. It will generate steady profits, AND you have a place to put it, AND you have people trained to use it. Pretty much a done deal here, NEXT year.
- If the instrument DOESN’T generate a profit… Then, they start looking at the mission statements and goals of the departments. Why is it necessary? What is the effect of NOT getting it? What other demands are there on this year’s capital budget, and are those items more or less important to fulfilling our mission?
- If there’s no space for it – other questions arise. Do we need a renovation to add it? Is there some department that’s been shrinking that we can take space from?
There’s a lot of political issues involved, unless you’re simply talking about replacements for worn out equipment. New TYPES of equipment imply new types of business, and all the attendant questions about changing the nature of the hospital’s business.
For example, my department is looking for health risk assessment software, to take and use a corporate and community health fairs. I am doing initial research, and already finding that the expense will probably be at least twice what anybody thought, and we can’t justify it for only OUR single use. So we’ll talk to our marketing, employee health, urgent care and human resources departments. Maybe we can find a product that will be of use to THEM as well, and the departments can share the costs.
For the simple reason that it’s often hard to find people willing to work weekends. In any case, many X-ray exams (such as fluoroscopic exams like GI studies) have to be done in the presence of a radiologist, and few radiologists want to work weekends.
Furthermore, most hospitals aren’t willing to pay the salaries required to fully staff the department with techs on weekends. Techs can demand and get hefty salaries for weekend shifts. For the hospital to fully staff, they would be forced to increase the fees they charge for X-rays, and most insurance companies wouldn’t stand for it.
This applies to scheduled exams. Should an emergency arise, the hospital will call in a tech to do the exam, if need be, and there are techs available for inpatients who need exams.
Yeah, it’s inconvenient, but a little inconvenience beats needless price increases.
Robin