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Starting out as a specific day to the Field Service USA program in 2011, the medical device attendees were so hungry for a more focused agenda that Field Service Medical ran as a separate event come 2012 and is now the premiere event for service executives in the med-tec space. Jonathan Massoud, Divisional Director WBR talks us through the latest industry trends and gives us a look at what to expect at this year's event...

 

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Thinking of going but still not got your tickets? Field Service News readers are entitled to a 25% discount to this event. Visit: fs-ne.ws/6Gfp308FA2N and use the code FSM17FSNEWS

 

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Every OEM that we surveyed in the lead up to the creation of 2017’s agenda mentioned regulatory guidelines and compliance as a concern. Right now, compliance becomes more critical as the FDA’s current focus is on third party providers and their relationship with OEMs.

Strict guidelines are a necessity. In a life or death setting, there is no time for faulty equipment.

There is a reason why OEMs are concerned, however.

These very regulations can impede innovation.

For example, apps built within a CRM that are not “quality certified” get shut down. Due to the sheer number of spare parts, regulatory bodies are forced to cherry pick what, when, and where they’re going to enforce.

Unless you are a big hospital or facility, JCAHO cannot enforce everything 100% of the time, creating an inconsistency in who is being carefully watched over.

Still, medical device equipment, spare parts, and how the technician fixes the machine have to comply with a multitude of rules. And as long as there is consistency and a quick turnaround process for approval, the OEM can appreciate this.

[quote]Despite how much compliance crackdowns may hinder ingenuity, money is continually poured into R&D for new products since the industry is fueled by the moralistic end-goal of improving quality of life.

Despite how much compliance crackdowns may hinder ingenuity, money is continually poured into R&D for new products since the industry is fueled by the moralistic end-goal of improving quality of life.

 

According to MDDI in a telling article entitled American Medtech Market to Grow 6.4% Annually Through 2017, “By 2016 the medical device market is projected to reach $134 billion.”

As this industry grows in revenue, there is a bigger focus on after-market service quality to create a brand differentiator, as they are selling to an increasingly shrinking customer.

Service needs a PR makeover. Customers are demanding more than just having a tech come over to fix a machine when it breaks. In fact, they want to see diagnostics tools being used so that the machine doesn’t break in the first place – or at the very least have a tech fix the problem remotely.

While it was once considered just a cost, service has a new role in revenue production, with some companies already having their service and sales departments integrated.

Due to this focus on cross-functional integration, OEM executives have finally come to realise that after-market service is a critical component to the customer’s experience.

This leads us to Field Service Medical 2017:

Day 1: Be Proactive Rather than Reactive:

• Create a business case for IoT to implement the right technologies for your organisation
• Be prepared for the shift and strategise how each department will be responsible for the technology before it is implemented
• Understand how end-users evaluate your product to drive operational decisions for delivery

Key sessions:

• ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’ Get Customer Metrics Through Your Call Centers – Tom Buckley, Director, Global Technical Service, Boston Scientific
• Workshop: Take a (Strategic) Leap Towards Connected Devices – Dan Barnett, Director, Customer Service, Abbott Laboratories

Day 2: Reinvigorate Your Culture

• Utilise service as a brand differentiator rather than a cost-reduction and implement this into your training and philosophy
• Navigate a complex regulatory environment by knowing what is in the pipeline and gaining clarity on gray areas surrounding third parties
• Identify the relevant metrics for measuring service success to actually tell a customer experience story with your data

Key sessions:

• Panel: What’s Unique about Your Service Solutions? – Amos Schneller, VP, Global Service and Technical Support, Medivators; Steve Nava, Director, Field Service Americas, Luminex; Ed Klosterman, Director, U.S. Field Service Operations, bioMérieux
• We’re Engaged: Training a Field Service Team Despite Long Distance – Steve Nava,Director, Field Service Americas, Luminex[/unordered_list]

Day 3: Achieve Cross-Functional Integration

• Overcome the bias about siloed roles and implement service into your R&D, marketing, and sales team right from the start
• Integrate service and sales to create a dual-sided profit center, selling service as a product
• Collaborate better with your marketing and IT team to get the service message across more effectively

Key sessions:

• Service is a Product – How to Sell it That Way! – Jeff Yates, National Service and Repair Manager, U.S., Richard Wolf Medical Instrument
• Panel: Shift from Customer Service to Customer – Karl Geffken, Senior Director, Marketing - Global Services, Medtronic; Catherine Read, Director, Customer Engagement, Carl Zeiss

 

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Thinking of going but still not got your tickets? Field Service News readers are entitled to a 25% discount to this event. Visit: fs-ne.ws/6Gfp308FA2N and use the code FSM17FSNEWS

 

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Tesseract’s service management software is about to be put to extremely good use. BCAS Biomedical Services Ltd (BCAS Biomed) will use it to more effectively manage thousands of life-critical devices for hospitals, healthcare professionals and the emergency services.

BCAS Biomed is a leading UK provider of Managed Equipment Services for the medical sector, maintaining everything from ventilators to defibrillators to ultrasound machines. Its current medical-sector-specific management software tells BCAS Biomed what assets need servicing and when, and also manages the scheduling. However, BCAS Biomed’s recent growth has highlighted some limitations, as well as the need for a mobile working solution for the field service engineering team.

“With some of our hospital contracts, we’re literally managing thousands of assets,” says Steve Dampier, Operations Director for BCAS Biomed. “Because these are life-critical devices, compliance is of the utmost importance. We chose Tesseract because their asset management software will help us track the history of the equipment more efficiently. They also offer local support, which is really useful for us.”

 

BCAS Biomed will be incorporating Tesseract’s Diary Assist and Remote Engineer Access (REA) modules in an effort to cut out delays, improve visibility and go paperless. Diary Assist will be used to schedule planned maintenance, replacing the company’s manual diary. REA will allow engineers to create and submit digital worksheets in real-time, rather than having to handwrite service reports and post them in.

Steve says, “Tesseract has much more functionality and longevity than the sector-specific system we have now. There are so many layers to the Tesseract system, so much scope for flexibility. It’s basically future-proof.”

 

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Field service in the medical industry is complex and challenging. Having recently attended the two key events -  Field Service Medical and Field Service Medical Europe - we look at some of the key challenges service directors working in this vertical face...

It is an often quoted maxim that when it comes to field service highly disparate companies from completely separate verticals can face many of the same pain points. Within the niche of the medical industry these challenges remain but there are also additional hurdles that can make service delivery even harder.

Fortunately for those working within medical field service, global conference producers WBR sit right at the heart of the industry hosting two key events, one each side of the Atlantic to help foster knowledge sharing within the community.

The first of these Field Service Medical was held in San Diego in February and in the Californian sunshine the debate was lively with a highly senior audience coming together and putting commercial rivalries aside to address some of the key challenges within the sector.

Of course as with the wider field service sector, technology has a huge role to play in enhancing the levels of service companies can provide, yet a number of additional challenges such as tighter regulation, greater security fears and fragmented purchasing structures can make the implementation of technology just that little bit harder within the medical sector.

 

Thus a number of conversations centred around integration, with FieldOne’s Ted Steffner’s presentation on the topic ‘Integrate, Don’t isolate’ being a particular highlight for a number of delegates.

Another specific focus of the medical sector is that the sale of consumables within the industry is perhaps disproportionally higher here than in other verticals such as manufacturing. Largely driven by the clean room environment, this leads to an even greater pressure to ensure good inventory management and as well as a number of presentations around this topic, Stacey Blakely, Service Sales Director, Hill-Rom led an excellent interactive round table that provided plenty of food for thought and helped drive the conversation.

Indeed, the sale of consumables is viewed very much as a key part of service revenue still within the medical sector and in some respects the thought processes of many within the vertical is still focused on the traditional break-fix approach to field service.

This was apparent when Professor Tim Baines, Aston University, gave a presentation on the topic of Servitization at Field Service Medical Europe in Berlin a month later.

 

Whilst in many other verticals the topic of servitization and phrases such as through-life-cycle service, advanced services and outcome based solutions are becoming familiar concepts, for many within the medical industry it remains a new concept which faces the dual barriers of both a relenting and strong traditional approach to revenue through consumables, as well as the additional challenges of fully implementing IoT solutions due to the aforementioned fears around security fuelled by the need to protect patient data.

However, whilst in some areas the medical industry maybe a touch behind the broader field service sector, it is also home to some truly innovative thinkers and service leaders.

One such person is Alec Pinto, Associate Director of Qiagen who gave a fantastic presentation on maximising utilisation. Pinto and his colleagues have done some exceptional work on developing mathematical modelling to truly define their available resources in terms of man hours, and then redistributing their workforce accordingly to improve customer satisfaction levels, efficiency levels and engineer engagement.

In summary, the field service industry within the medical sector has a number of unique challenges that are perhaps not felt within other verticals yet the market still continues to see innovation and development on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

“There is an overall theme of companies being more proactive and less reactive across the sector at the moment,” commented Greg Ashton, Conference Producer for WBR at the end of Field Service Medical Europe.

“People have been thinking about it for a long time but now the technology is at a place now where there is a fusion of people and technology all arriving together at a critical point.”

“It’s really the solution providers that are driving it forward, the solutions themselves have improved a lot over the last year,” he added.

 

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