back to TechBench newslettersJanuary 2012
   
  • For the next 30 days all Maquet replacement parts will be sold at 5% off current OEM list price.
  • These parts will be shipped new, directly from Maquet and will carry the standard factory warranty.
  • The only thing you'll notice being different is your price will be 5% less than you were used to paying.
  • Maquet now joins the growing list of OEM distribution partnerships PartsSource has been privileged to represent.
  • Call, email or join the growing list of satisfied ePartsFinder™, users and start saving money on your Maquet part orders today!     -- the end --
   
 
  • Happy New Year! Every January at PartsSource we set our respective goals and objectives and review our upcoming plans for the New Year, just like you. Through every passing year we are reminded that our growth and success is driven by you, our customers, and we thank each and every one of you for being a part of that success. 2012 will be an exciting year at PartsSource as we will continue to build on the success of our revolutionary SmartPrice™ technology, which has had a tremendous impact on ePartsFinder™ utilization, our proprietary web-based parts procurement platform.
  • Currently we have over 7000 customers representing over 800 hospitals that rely on our technologies to procure and manage the parts process. We will also continue to expand our OEM partnerships and as you'll read later, and we are proud to be adding Maquet to our growing list of strategic manufacturer relationships. That's not all, we are working hard on more than a few pleasant surprises for our customers that you'll see throughout the year to come!

    I encourage everyone to make 2012 the best year for your career, your life and your family.
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(To continue reading click the left/right arrows)
   
John Reinhart, Engineer Ukiah Valley Medical Center
  • 1. Where are you from originally?
    I was born and raised in Southern California. I spent 20 years in the Air Force and when I left the service I was looking for someplace where the air was cleaner and life was a bit calmer. That's how I ended up in Ukiah.
    2. Are you married?
    Yes – I have been married for 20 years now
    3. Do you have any children? What has being a dad (or even Grandpa) taught you?
    I have four kids and eight grandkids. That's an easy answer – patience. As a matter of fact I'm still learning that every day!
  • 4. How long have you worked at Ukiah? Have you always worked in Clinical Engineering?
    10 years and no, I started out in maintenance at a different Adventist Health hospital. One day long ago we had a Portable X-Ray go down and everybody was afraid to touch it because it was X-Ray. This was back in the day when everything was covered under contract. I volunteered to take a look because I was just out of the military and knew a little bit about machines. People were amazed that I could fix it and all I did was solder a few wires. From there I moved into Clinical Engineering, worked my way through that and literally built the program here.
  • 5. What do you like best about your job? How do you keep it fun?
    Being a position to repair equipment I get to see how different companies have chosen to solve the same problem. Each OEM's engineers take a different path to the same solution and I enjoy seeing the many different ways problems can get solved. You can see how one company took blood pressure, for example, early on – learned from their mistakes and corrected them. Truly broken equipment only occurs about 30% of the time. When that does happen the guys down here are like sharks attacking in trying to all figure out the best way to fix it. That's when it's the most fun.
  • 6. What do you like least about your job?
    People issues are no fun. Unlike the machines I work on, people have a unique set of challenges and I need to be real careful when I respond. I don't have to think about which way to turn a screw but I do need to think before responding sometimes.
    7. What do you wish you could change?
    Licensing of Biomeds. I need a license to drive my car, my barber needs a license to cut my hair but the guy fixing an anesthesia machine at a hospital doesn't need a license? I don't understand that at all. We work in a highly complex and difficult environment that requires a great deal of knowledge and education to be successful. I don't understand why there isn't a licensing body to make sure people are properly trained before working on this equipment.
  • 8. This newsletter will go out to many other people working in the same field as you. What tips can you give somebody just starting out? What do you wish somebody had told you when you were new?
    Walk softly with the medical staff. You only get one chance to make a first impression and once people have decided if you're competent or not they seldom change. To be successful in this field you need the full support and confidence of the medical team and you'll need bridges of communication to them on many issues.
  • 9. Last question – tell us something unique about you or something most people don't know?
    Well most people know this already but I am a very avid sailor and love being on the water. I have a 27ft Catalina (pictured) and spend as much time as I can on the boat. I have sailed in virtually all of the oceans and seas and once took a 22' boat from Long beach, California to Port Townsend, Washington. I have skippered my C27 from San Diego to the SF bay several times. I now mostly race on Clear lake or Charter when on vacation. My dad, who also loved sailing, told me that his brother once said to him: "you sailors have taken the slowest form of transportation ever devised by man then you try and race with it!" My Dad's reply was "go ahead and we'll give you a head start. The last guy that was seen walking around on the water, well ...... that didn't turn out so good for him"
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  • Not sure if you have the right part number to identify the part you need to order? Worried that if you do order the part you won't know if you've guessed correctly until it arrives? It's not a lot of fun to try and describe what the part you need looks like and what it does and it's even less fun when the replacement part arrives and it's not what you need. Another day of downtime and no guarantees that you'll get the right part when the replacement arrives. Here at PartsSource we track all part returns carefully and "wrong part shipped" occurs most frequently when a customer doesn't have a part number and we have to try and guess which part is being requested.
  • To combat this industry-wide problem PartsSource undertook the challenge of creating a picture archive gallery for parts across all modalities and manufacturers. It was our goal to provide a representative picture of each and every part we sold to our customers and to make those pictures available real-time via ePartsFinder™. As of today we have collected over 250,000 pictures and these pictures represent over 75% of all parts sold and our totals grow every day. So if you use ePartsFinder™, when you place an order not only can you receive your pricing instantly via SmartPrice™ you can also view a representative picture of the part you are purchasing before you place your order.
  • In fact, ePartsFinder™, users have experienced a dramatic decrease in wrong part shipped which translates to dramatic increases in both uptime and customer satisfaction. And for the smart Clinical Engineer, any tool that saves time, money and increases uptime is worth utilizing as often as you can. Want to learn more about ePartsFinder™, and our ground-breaking SmartPrice™ technology? Simply click on either of the above links and you'll be taken instantly to a demonstration of both applications.

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