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when it comes to radiation exposure, and this expensive purchase is worth-
while."
Finding the right fit
Two factors drove leaders at St. John Macomb-Oakland Center in Madison
Heights, Mich., to invest in a pair of C-arms to service the hospital's 5 ORs:
improved fluoroscopy capabilities — including data storage and retrieval — and
the happiness of its surgeons, especially the orthopods.
"Our guys were asking for updated equipment because they wanted to save
and download clinical data, and our previous C-arms didn't have that capability,"
says Pamela Borello, RN, BSN, CNOR, CSSM, the hospital's clinical nurse man-
ager of perioperative services.
As part of its due diligence, St. John reviewed options from a handful of
approved vendors, utilizing feedback from the radiology department and mem-
bers of the surgical team. The hospital also trialed "a few different specialties"
before committing to the investment, says Ms. Borello. Once satisfied with the
capabilities, the next step was to float the price past the purchasing department
and other members of the capital committee.
"We had to come up with a number," she says. "The committee was willing to
negotiate, but they wanted a volume commitment, because no one is going to
invest $100,000 without seeing some sort of return."
Ms. Borello says the hospital is managed like a co-management group; physi-
cians are financially involved, and they wanted to see how much fluoroscopy
the hospital was actually doing to make sure it would get a return on the invest-
ment. The hospital wound up investing around $90,000 for 2 refurbished C-arms,
one of which can be used for vascular procedures.
"If [buying refurbished] is the way we have to get the equipment we need,
that's what we'll do," says Ms. Borello. She advises you look for ways to get cre-
ative within your budget. "Our vendor worked together with us on the price, and
we also got trade-in credit for a couple of devices we already had," she says.
"The level of service we received from the vendor rep was one of the big rea-
