Against a backdrop of timelines, budgets, and the inevitable challenges associated with medical construction, the role of healthcare equipment acquisition project management is essential for both large-scale projects and smaller renovations.
For specialty distributors like CME Corp., helping contractors manage the acquisition of healthcare equipment for medical construction projects is about more than placing the order with the manufacturer and making the delivery to the site. It is about communication and collaboration with all facility stakeholders, construction project managers, utility vendors, manufacturing partners, and our expert equipment sales managers, warehousing, logistics, delivery, installation, and biomedical check-in teams – from start to finish and every step in between.
We understand this.
Project Management for Healthcare Equipment Acquisition
CME Corp.’s professional in-house project management teams are dedicated to supporting a project’s healthcare equipment acquisition needs from start to finish – regardless of whether the contractor furnished equipment (or any other healthcare equipment) is being purchased through CME or directly from the manufacturer.
Project managers proactively communicate with all stakeholders, externally and internally, ensuring information related to a project or complex equipment order is continuously communicated to customers, account managers, and the teams supporting every aspect of the order. Continuous communication is the foundation for the flawless coordination of all phases of healthcare equipment acquisition – from preparing the complex purchase orders associated with construction projects to order tracking and scheduling the delivery and installation of equipment to meet project milestones.
- Coordinate with Account Managers after orders are placed: Once an order has been placed, the project management team steps in. Collectively, they will remain in communication with all stakeholders through the delivery and installation of the healthcare equipment.
- Prepare Weekly Tracker Reports: PMs share weekly tracking reports with information relevant to the stage of the project.
- Facilitate Weekly Meetings with the Customer: As planned delivery dates approach, PMs facilitate more frequent meetings with key stakeholders.
- Issue Resolution: Throughout the project PMs actively work to resolve issues, such as shipping damage, as they arise. Although communicated to the customer, the focus is to ensure the issue is invisible in terms of impact on delivery milestones.
- Communication with the Warehouse Logistics Teams: PMs maintain open communication with the warehouse logistics teams to ensure the project management team has the most up to date information related to receiving and inspections as well as scheduled deliveries, the status of staging and loading delivery trucks.
- Communication with Direct-to-Site (DTS) Delivery Teams: Open communication with the DTS team ensures critical scheduling and delivery instructions from the customer are shared.
- Delivery, Installation Paperwork Review: Following delivery and installation (if applicable) of equipment, PMs review and sign receivers against pick slips so invoicing is accurate and timely.
As a trusted partner to well-known equipment planners nationwide, CME Corp.’s knowledgeable account managers also help support construction projects beginning with the early equipment planning discussions facilitated by planners. With focused healthcare equipment expertise and relationships with a network of leading industry manufacturers our expert sales team can offer equipment recommendations during these critical, early conversations.
Project Management for Complex Healthcare Equipment Purchases
Our focused medical equipment expertise, comprehensive project management, and white-glove direct-to-site delivery and installation services made us the logical partner for IMEG when they needed to acquire 6,000 individual healthcare equipment items from 122 unique product types for Mohawk Valley Health System’s new Wynn Hospital. By the end of the project, the CME project management team had tracked orders for all 6,000 items, coordinated supplemental warehousing for the next level quantity of equipment, scheduled the wall mounted installation of 608 items with construction project teams, and ensured deliveries were made within construction timelines and milestones. Read the complete case study.
Project Management for Logistical Challenges to Healthcare Equipment Delivery
Whether the volume of healthcare equipment items required for renovation or large-scale construction projects is off the scales or the physical logistics of the construction site involve next level challenge, CME project managers make it their business to understand everything nuance of the project so they can effectively communicate with stakeholders and on-site teams delivery teams to overcome hurdles.
Take for example the 70,000 square foot, two story expansion to Peace Health’s Ketchikan Medical Center on Revillagigedo Island in southern Alaska several years ago.
Beginning with the consolidation of purchase requisitions from 62 different manufacturers into a single purchase order, CME project managers continuously collaborated with all key stakeholders to coordinate warehousing and the logistics to stage, transport by barge over open water, and install over 2,000 pieces of medical equipment in a facility located on an island with limited warehousing facilities, and narrow, hilly roads. PMs also navigated the added challenge of scheduling within a compressed delivery schedule facilitated by earlier construction delays.
Project Management for a Comprehensive One-Stop Healthcare Equipment Purchase Experience
We understand that effectively managing healthcare equipment acquisition is about integrating the disciplines of project management, logistics, warehousing, assembly, staging, delivery, and installation into a comprehensive one-stop purchase experience focused on helping to ensure medical construction projects are completed on time and in budget.
Individually our project management, logistics, warehousing, delivery and installation, and biomedical check-in service teams give us the advantage when it comes to effectively managing the unique challenges of acquiring healthcare equipment for medical construction projects. Collectively these services make us the only truly one-stop shop healthcare equipment distributor in the country.
Find your Account Manager and start a conversation about the healthcare equipment required for your project.
