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Partnership enables MUSC to obtain imaging equipment
By Shelia Watson
Contributing Writer
A strategic alliance with Siemens Medical Solutions will enable the Medical University of South Carolina to obtain the latest in high-tech imaging equipment, much of it at reduced costs and the bulk of it destined for MUSC’s new hospital, due to open next summer.
Lee Gardner, manager of MUSC’s capital allocation program, said the university has signed a five-year agreement, which includes five additional one-year options, that makes Siemens the exclusive supplier for all of MUSC’s radiology and cardiology imaging equipment.
MUSC is one of only a handful of medical institutions in the United States partnering with Siemens. Gardner said the university was chosen because of its reputation as a top teaching hospital, which gives Siemens a front-row seat where cutting-edge research is being done.
Siemens, headquartered in Malvern, Pa., and Erlangen, Germany, is one of the largest suppliers of health care equipment in the world. Known for its innovative medical technologies, such as electro-medicine and imaging equipment, and its health care information systems and services, the company employs about 31,000 worldwide and operates in more than 120 countries.
The agreement between Siemens and MUSC, which covers advanced clinical imaging machines and provides some of the most powerful magnetic resonance systems available for research, came about following a request-for-proposal that MUSC sent out to its vendors.
“The original idea was to get someone to partner with to get capital assets because we’re working on building a new hospital,” said Gardner. “Then we scaled back to consider just the imaging equipment, and even that was a lengthy process. We started it in the summer of 2003 and just finalized it last month.”
Under the terms of the agreement, MUSC commits to buying a certain list of equipment that will be used for the radiology and cardiology departments as well as a maintenance plan. Gardner said the maintenance plan is worth the cost because typically such equipment comes with only a one-year warranty.
Gardner said another benefit of the agreement is being able to take advantage of strategic alliance pricing.
“The CT heart scanner we just bought was about half off,” he said. “Typically we would have been able to get it at about 25 percent off. Not everything will have that kind of price break, of course, but there is definitely a benefit to having a partnership like this.”
The university already has taken advantage of the agreement with the
purchase of several pieces of equipment. Gardner said between the CT heart scanner and a magnetic resonance imaging machine with angiography suites, the register rang up at about $25 million.
Gardner said the total that will be spent via the agreement depends on how much is approved by MUSC’s board of trustees, but he figured that over five years, “it could reach probably $75 to $100 million.”
Outfitting a new hospital
While $75 to $100 million may sound like a hefty price tag, that amount is likely within reason to equipment a new hospital, especially one billed as the Center for Advanced Medicine, which will focus on chest pain and digestive diseases among other health care issues requiring advanced medical treatment.
Gardner said the hospital is scheduled to open next summer, but MUSC will begin installing the equipment in March. The bulk of the equipment purchased through the Siemens agreement will go into the new facility.
At approximately 641,000 square feet, the Center for Advanced Medicine will include:
• 156 beds for cardiovascular and digestive disease services, including 32 intensive-care unit beds.
• Nine operating rooms, including one equipped with fixed equipment for vascular surgery.
• Three electrophysiology labs, four interventional/diagnostic cath labs, two interventional radiology labs, plus a third IR lab equipped with a CT scanner.
• Nine endoscopy suites, including high-tech endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography and endoscopic ultrasound suites and two motility rooms.
• Outpatient clinics, which will accommodate approximately 120,000 visits, and associated faculty offices.
• A specialized chest pain center, which includes observation beds.
• Imaging capacity that includes two diagnostic CTs, one interventional CT, one diagnostic MRI, three nuclear cameras, three RF rooms and space for new modality to serve chest pain center and outpatient cardio-diagnostics.
The Siemens agreement is not the first exclusive agreement MUSC has worked out with a vendor.
Frank Clark, vice president for information technology and chief information officer, said more and more often the university is choosing strategic partners in a number of areas, with the idea being to decrease the number of partners and suppliers with whom the university deals.
“It’s more cost effective and more efficient to deal with a few vendors as opposed to many.”
For instance, he said, MUSC is working with McKesson, a San Francisco-based health care IT company, to provide hospital information systems.
“McKesson captures what the university is attempting to do, which is get everything we’re doing in electronic format,” he said. “It’s helpful to be dealing with one company on this.
“Anywhere we provide service or care, we want to capture it in digital format. Hopefully that will make us more efficient as well as save time and money. Our plans are to open the new tower in an electronic format and eliminate as much paper as possible. We’re hoping this will improve not only the quality of care but also patient safety.”
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