New portfolio for imaging systems could reduce impact on patient care.
Institutions with Siemens Healthineers products can now select a service contract option that best matches their operational schedule, limiting the impact of routine maintenance on patient care activities.
With CentriCare – a new, patient-centric service contract portfolio – Siemens allows customers to select the most convenient time period for company personnel to address non-urgent service requests. Doing so addresses the issue of existing service contracts frequently overlapping with operational hours, the company said. It's a problem that can result in preventive maintenance infringing on patient care.
According to a press statement, CentriCare offers three flexible service plans – Signature, Benchmark, and Balance – that offer more system availability and uptime while limitng clinical disruption during time periods where machines are needed most for patient care.
“Customers have asked us to align with their priorities so that they can provide an optimal patient experience free of offline imaging systems and extended patient wait times. These customers also want to avoid related out-of-scope service expenses, such as overtime, spare parts, and expediated shipping charges,” said Michael Wendt, senior vice president of customer services at Siemens Healthineers, in the written statement. “The CentriCare service portfolio is a direct response to these customer requests.”
Each plan offers Protected Care Hours during which Siemens guarantees 100-percent uptime, according to the company statement. But, if service-hour interruptions do occur, the CentriCare Entrust Program offers per-hour credits that can be applied to current or future invoices for other Siemens products and services. Other CentriCare components can include single vendor point-of-contact, including dedicated VIP phone line or a clinical or technical concierge expert, to help with onboarding to service escalations and incident reporting.
Currently, CentriCare service contracts are available in certain parts of the United States, including the Northeast.
MRI-Based AI Radiomics Model Offers 'Robust' Prediction of Perineural Invasion in Prostate Cancer
July 26th 2024A model that combines MRI-based deep learning radiomics and clinical factors demonstrated an 84.8 percent ROC AUC and a 92.6 percent precision-recall AUC for predicting perineural invasion in prostate cancer cases.
Breast MRI Study Examines Common Factors with False Negatives and False Positives
July 24th 2024The absence of ipsilateral breast hypervascularity is three times more likely to be associated with false-negative findings on breast MRI and non-mass enhancement lesions have a 4.5-fold likelihood of being linked to false-positive results, according to new research.
Can Polyenergetic Reconstruction Help Resolve Streak Artifacts in Photon Counting CT?
July 22nd 2024New research looking at photon-counting computed tomography (PCCT) demonstrated significantly reduced variation and tracheal air density attenuation with polyenergetic reconstruction in contrast to monoenergetic reconstruction on chest CT.