Sunday, September 15, 2013

Things to Consider before Buying Used Medical Equipment

Ventilator circuits
Most of us may not afford to buy a new medical equipment at the beginning of medical practice, especially general physicians, and also people who opt for home medical equipment. Therefore, buying used medical equipment is a sensible and wise choice.

We have to be careful while selecting used equipment, because suppliers may mislead us about the product. Here is some information that will help you while buying a used medical equipment.

Purpose of buying – Make sure you are clear enough about the purpose of buying the used medical equipment. It should be specific to your requirement such as oxygen concentrators for oxygen supply. Make sure to check your budget, and and the equipment is suitable for use.

Working condition – Make sure that it is in working condition and can be used for long time. Generally, equipment that are not working properly are sold at cheaper rates, people get attracted most of the time and buy. Therefore, be careful in selecting the equipment, even if you have to spend some extra dollars, see that you get the best used equipment.

Quality – When buying, see the appearance of the equipment, olden days equipment can be easily figured out, avoid buying them. Today equipment have special features that were unavailable in the past. If you have relevant knowledge, it makes easy to judge the quality of the equipment.

Cost – Compare prices of used equipment from different sources. Also take suggestions from people who are in regular touch with distributors in the market. Generally low quality and old used equipment are available at a cheaper price when compared to equipment that are less used. Batter to opt for the ones that are less used.

Safety – Some equipment may be damaged when with high voltage, specially electrically operating ones like X-ray machine, monitors, etc. Ask concerned person to check electrical safety before buying the equipment.

Services – Service centers for the repair and maintenance of old equipment may not be available. It is better not to buy such equipment. Choose equipment that have maximum services available.

Proper handling – Selecting the best used equipment is not enough, you should also know how to handle it properly. So proper knowledge about its usage is necessary. In case of hospitals, people handling medical equipment should be trained in handling them. Education and awareness programs should to be conducted.

Before buying used equipment, take suggestions from people who have knowledge of them. This will help you in choosing the right equipment.

Importance of Medical Equipment

Medical equipment perform multiple functions in the day-to-day life. We cannot imagine our life without them. People are exposed to some or the other health problems regularly, if there were no medical Equipment available, treatment would have not been possible.

Following are the significance and importance of medical Equipment.

Respiratory medical equipment
For detection of disease – If an individual is suffering from any disease, doctors can treat effectively if the reason behind that condition is predicted. Medical equipment, specially designed for diagnosis help in evaluating reason. Once the disease is predicted, it is important to monitor the condition from time to time to see if any changes took place in the health condition of the patient.

Accuracy – Sophisticated and automated equipment are now available in the market to interpret the results. These devices give accurate results without any error in values, because wrong interpretations may mislead doctors to give inappropriate treatment. Errors may occur when results are evaluated manually, but the machines do not. They minimize or completely eliminate these errors.

Efficiency – Efficiency indicates results produced in less time. This is more important in case of medical equipment. They give quick and fast results in less time.

Feasibility – This term works in case of home medical equipment. Equipment usage should be easy even by people who don’t use them regularly. Some medical equipment are suggested by doctors to use at home.

Specific in function – Every medical equipment cannot do all functions. Each one is designed with a purpose, say diagnostic equipment operates only diagnosis, monitors are used only for assessing condition of patient, laboratory equipment only for testing samples, therapeutic equipment are used only for therapies to heal or relieve pain after some surgeries such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy equipment.

Wide range of service providers – Practitioners who cannot spent their time in choosing and buying equipment personally through stores, they have online medical stores available with all the information regarding each and every medical equipment of today. They provide equal services like that of offline stores. There are enough number of options for each equipment.

They also have scope in scientific fields to analyze the experiments. Example DNA analyzers used for genome sequencing, colorimeter for nucleic acid estimations, reagents used in different analysis, etc. They help in relieving pain in patients who have serious health issues like cancer.

Medical Equipment have become a part our routine life especially for doctors and expertise in science fields. They reduce labor and are highly efficient.