Your Guide to Medical Imaging Equipment

As you do the technical and functional homework on your next cath lab purchasing decision, at some point, you’re more than likely to ask, “How much will this equipment cost me in ongoing maintenance?” That’s a good question to ask, since every cath lab needs preventative maintenance (PM) and, eventually, repairs and component replacements. To that end, we’re ready to offer a good answer at a couple different levels of risk tolerance. 

Read below to get ballpark costs for maintaining your cath lab on either a time and materials basis, or under a comprehensive coverage contract.

Have a cath lab model in mind? Browse our current inventory of cath labs and get a quote!

If you own or operate an MRI scanner you understand how important it is to monitor your system's helium level and cooling performance. You may also know that even with regular checks, things that will drop your helium level dramatically and put you at risk for a magnet quench can still happen. Nights, weekends, even regular office hours between checkups are all times when a parts failure somewhere in your system can send the temperature up and the helium to a boil.

So, if you can't have someone watching your MRI 24 hours a day, what can you do to prevent incidents like this? The answer might be a device called a remote diagnostic unit (RDU). We'll tell you more about the RDU and how it works in the next few paragraphs.

We've all stood in the checkout line at Best Buy before. Maybe you've just bought a new HDTV- you're excited to go home, mount it on the wall, and fire up Star Wars in 4K, when the cashier asks the question, "Do you want to pay an additional $99 to extend the 3-year warranty?"

Thinking back through my history as a TV owner and how many times I've actually needed to have one repaired, I calculate the risk in an instant and politely decline. Then I go about my life, happy with my decision and comfortable with the low-probability risk I've just taken.

This is my approach to warranties with many products, but my perspective has changed over my years of selling digital cath/angio labs. Relative to this equipment, the risk can be very high, and the warranties can bring so much more value to the table. Check out the examples below to see what I mean and learn what you could save with the right service investment,

The Siemens Sensation family has two main detector types: those found on the 10 and 16-slice systems, and those found on the 40 and 64-slice systems. Both use a proprietary, ceramic-based material to fluoresce under exposure to X-ray. They are also both comprised of 42 modules that receive the X-ray and convert it to electronic signals.

Periodically, depending on a few factors like your room temperature and humidity and your patient volume, these detector modules will begin to degrade and fail. The following are a few tips for troubleshooting detector modules and installing your replacements.

Moving from OEM service to third-party service or, perhaps, investing in support for your equipment for the first time can be a daunting proposition- AND one that raises many questions. Our team fields these questions every day to help service buyers make informed decisions for their facilities. We can't speak for every independent service provider but, using our own scope and expertise as an example, we hope to show you some of what's available as you approach the third-party market for service on your medical imaging equipment. Join us as we tackle the FAQs of buying medical imaging service.