Buying a digital radiography machine can be stressful. With so many different sales pitches and options to sort through, decision paralysis is not uncommon. You can help avoid making mistakes in your purchase by using the experience others have had on the human side.
The following is a list of the 10 biggest mistakes in purchasing capital equipment. This list was originally published in the book "Radiology Business Practice. How to Succeed.* "By David Yousem and Norman Beauchamp, Jr. {joso}
Biggest mistakes in purchasing capital equipment**
- Confusing the salesperson with the product. It is obviously the goal of any company to have salespeople with good personalities, who are knowledgeable, dress well, and are attractive. The purpose of this is so that you will think that the product they represent will be of the same high quality as the salesperson. There may be some correlation between the quality of the salesperson and the quality of the product, but it is safest to assume that there is no correlation at all.
- Failing to check out the local service operation. For this, there is no substitute for word of mouth and local reputation. The quality of service ultimately comes down to the individual service engineer. Service support back at the home office is important for certain essential things, but your uptime will depend more on local service people.
- Believing surgeons. A few surgeons understand the economics of imaging equipment; however, these are very few indeed. A few also are concerned about radiation safety. Our local examples of bad economic decisions based on surgeons' recommendations include:
- Fixed fluoroscopic units in the operating room (twice)
- Biplane mobile fluoro unit designed for hip surgery
- Lithotripsy device
- Cysto-table with fluoro
All had very low volumes.
- Accepting a beta-level product in an area where you need reliability.
- Buying a product near the end of its technical life; it will not be supported.
- Getting a product from a company with a different primary focus. For instance, Pfizer, at one point, had an outstanding CT product. They discontinued development. Johnson and Johnson had an excellent MRI product. They sold it.
- Assuming that a key feature is standard when it is an extra cost option.
- Choosing equipment over the end user's objection. Unless it is perfect, which is impossible, you will get endless complaints.
- Buying a good product from an undercapitalized company. This can be a winner, but you have to have tolerance for high risk, because you might get stuck with an unsupported product.
- Forgetting that more volume means more supplies, more PACs support, and thus higher overall expenses.{/joso}
* The book Radiology Business Practice. How to Succeed has much more than this top 10 list. Among other topics, there is an excellent discussion about turf battles in the hospital situation.
** Reprinted with permission from Elsevier. © 2008.
