Canadian Medical Imaging Inventory Service Report | Maintenance Service Agreements for Imaging Equipment

Canadian Medical Imaging Inventory Service Report | Maintenance Service Agreements for Imaging Equipment Canadian Medical Imaging Inventory Service Report Maintenance Service Agreements for Imaging Equipment Context Advanced imaging equipment is a significant contributor to the growth in health care costs.1 Maintenance service agreements (MSAs) have a similar financial value to the cost of a new i. [...] There are also intangible costs incurred by the health system, such as those associated with the rescheduling of appointments.9 A MSA defines the terms under which the service provider agrees to perform maintenance and/or corrective repairs to the imaging equipment for a specified amount of time and at an agreed-on cost. [...] For example, the most common type of situation where this occurs is at a site with 2 CTs, where 1 is newly installed; the new unit is usually under warranty, while the maintenance of the older unit is under another type of service agreement; however, only one type of service agreement could be reported. [...] It is common for the OEMs of medical imaging equipment to provide service contracts because they have the expertise on the equipment.9 Full vendor contracts provide a wide range of services, such as corrective maintenance, operational maintenance, planned maintenance, and extended warranty, along with insurance maintenance programs for a set period of time.20,16 They usually offer multiple service. [...] Often, the largest proportions of problems with imaging equipment, such as design flaws and repetitive failures, occur within the first year after installation during the warranty period.19 At the end of the warranty, health care systems have to select their service contract type.4 Around 1% of all CT and MRI are under warranty in Canada, and all became operational within a year of the last CMII d.