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Medical Equipment Planning That Works · Taking The Supply Chain Pulse

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everyone.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode of Taking the Supply Chain Pulse.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Megan with St.Ange Company, and we're thrilled to have you with us as we kick off season four.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: We're starting the season with an exciting conversation featuring one of our newest team members, St.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Ange Medical Equipment Planner Rich King.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Rich's arrival expands St.Ange's service offerings by bringing dedicated medical equipment planning expertise to our healthcare clients, further strengthening our ability to support projects in strategic planning and design through activation and occupancy.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you're a longtime listener or joining us for the first time, we're excited to launch another season of insightful conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and experts from across the healthcare supply chain.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now here's your host, Fred Cranz.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're happy to welcome uh Rich here.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna have Rich tell us a little bit about himself, about his background, about uh equipment planning, all kinds of stuff that everybody needs to know, and uh a few people have expert resources to talk about it.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, Rich, welcome.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Fred, thank you so much.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate your time today.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um looking forward to this.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, as you know, uh a little bit about me and Rich King.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um been in healthcare business for a good 26 plus years.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, worked for various manufacturers after I got my engineering degree.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: I worked for Beckman Coulter, so in the lab industry, worked for GE Healthcare, uh, where I started my biomedical uh engineering um kind of experience and moved into leadership roles at GE.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then from there went to Siemens, um, worked there for some time, then over to Banner Health out here in Phoenix area, and where I did a lot of the project um I say medical equipment planning at that time.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: And um then I went over to Sedexo, finished off there before coming over to uh to here to St.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Notch.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: And looking forward to this opportunity because we got a great um great business plan that we're gonna be putting together and really developing this.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Where I think we're gonna really show some great value to our customers um and to our business partners of what we can do and and how successful we could be for them.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty good.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was taking notes while you were saying that, and a lot of a lot of people will have um expertise in one modality or one specialty or one department, but uh as I went through here, I'm looking at Beckman Coulter.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you're in the lab you're in the lab arena with the Coulter counters, uh you're in GE, which is uh all kinds of all kinds of radiology and other kinds of technology, Siemens, once again, uh radiology, banner health.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've actually been in healthcare systems uh uh doing the actual work running projects and running places there, and Senexo, which is an outsourcing firm that that uh does uh a lot of uh um uh outsourced work in key departments for healthcare organizations.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you really have a uh a really varied uh background.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you tell tell a little bit about each?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: What what did what did you do when you were at at uh at uh Beckman Coulter, for example?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, sure thing, Brent.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll I'll go through it and kind of give a little bit more details of what I did.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_02: So um Beckman Coulter is where I really started my professional career, um, where I was a clinical engineer, where I basically fix uh culter counters is the the portion that I work.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: So Beckman and Coulter was basically two different companies that merged together way back when.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I worked on the culture side, uh did the culture counters and culture interpretation, and I would say that that's a very fascinating technology just to understand how all that works and how they count your blood cells.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think we all take it for granted where it goes, we don't really care, we just want to know what the numbers are.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it's nice to learn that scientific aspects of it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and then from there, um, when I went over to GE Healthcare, so yeah, started off uh as a uh biomedical technician, uh, mainly got hired to work on decultur instruments for one of the hospitals that I was working for.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um and then thereafter, within within nine months, I was already be um becoming what they call the project coordinator, which is basically like a director for the um clinical engineering department.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I oversaw that for a little while and then got promoted to uh basically a service program manager or coordinator, I forget what they call it back then.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: And basically what I did is I oversaw um all the imaging equipment services for one of our large accounts down in San Diego, and which also included uh part of the US Navy that was down there.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I had various roles there, did various things, and really got a great deal of experience um around the imaging side of the business through um GE.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I went over to Siemens, uh basically doing a very similar job that I did at GE in regards to uh imaging services, but I was on the multi-vendor side of Siemens, where I managed the Western region operations for all of the imaging services that we had contracts with for hospitals, imaging centers, uh things like that, where I had people underneath me that manage each specific account, and I oversaw it at a higher level.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then um over at Banner, so we'll dig in a little bit of that.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So um, you know, a good colleague of mine was working at Banner and asked me to come on over for theirs to do something very, I would say, uh different than what my skill sets brought, right?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: I never have never bought been into uh project uh consultant or you know, project um medical equipment planning, I should say.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so that's what this was.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And this this was a great aspect.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it was one of the biggest projects that Banner had at the time, and that was a partnership that they had with the University of Arizona, and in that partnership was to build a new hospital for all the doctors that are over at the O Bay and make it a big teaching facility um slash hospital for them.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: So we built, I believe it was about nine stories, uh, just under 800,000 square feet.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_02: And basically it was a brand new hospital from the ground up, and which was great because I was the lead, um, they call it project consultant, but we'll stick with medical uh uh planner here.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I was the lead person for that, where I had uh two others that helped out, and once in a while we'll have to rotate people in uh to give us just a little extra hand at certain levels uh from other areas.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but basically planned it from the ground up for all the medical equipment for each department that's in a hospital.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you're talking from the from the morgue all the way up to regular beds, you know, med search beds.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um we had a huge OR there.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And the best part about this was doing this is I I really felt that in the five years that I was on this project, I really probably got 20 plus years experience just in a short period of time because it was such a rapid, rapid uh pace, developing a lot of you know new things and bringing in some new technology that was out there.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the greatest things that I like to share that that I thought was just fascinating, it kind of blew me away.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: But as I was sitting down having um user group meetings, and a lot of it's you know with uh you know the department directors, some of the you know, supervisors or other end users there, and a lot mainly in certain areas, we're we're talking to the chiefs of that department, so the doctors that are running it.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the biggest things is we're bringing in just um we're thinking of just bringing in basic this video integration around the OR, and that kind of really escalated into the cath labs, we um all the way into to be honest with you, to the to the morgue, which was fascinating, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of this was was trying to understand the logistics of why we needed so much video integration, and it really made sense when we sat down with the doc.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: He says, because with this video integration that they ended up selecting, we they were able to take their iPad or their phone or on their computer, and no matter where they're at, they can always talk to that surgeon or somebody that's in that room that may have a question for them, or they use it for a teaching uh perspective where instead of you know uh a group of people in the OR or a group of people in the morgue as they're doing an autopsy, they're able to string that over to a classroom and have the people there to be able to see everything that's going on in that room because we had cameras that were in the ceiling, they were able to look down.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: We had cameras in the um the surgical lights, so there's cameras selected in every area so they had a good viewpoint no matter where they wanted to see.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and I would say that that was the whole entire project was so fascinating for me.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was kind of really a big passion of mine, and um really found out that you know this is this is a great aspect.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: I I love being in this area, being able to to help be a part of something that one, you know what you're putting in there is going to be excellent for patient care.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're also providing for the community when you're doing stuff like this, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because you know that you're putting the best of the best that's in there, and that you gave it you're giving your best to make sure that everything is seamless and working properly.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so that was one of my passions that I really enjoyed.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: And then, of course, you know, as as you know, Fred, we all went through that COVID portion and we all weren't sure what hospitals or businesses were doing.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And now it's about the same time that COVID, I mean, excuse me, that the hospital project was winding down, and um I was getting accorded by Sedexo and that you know to come over there.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where I went to Sedexo and and basically did something very similar as I did with Siemens and GE, was um basically be an operation manager overseeing um parts of the Midwest and all the Western region.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that was mainly around this.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this was around biomedical uh services, which we had some accounts too that we did imaging as well.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a combination of both um of everything I've done in the past, all summed up into one.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, did that for a good handful of years and and decided that now coming to St.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: Audges, I want to get back to what was my passion that I found out working at Banner of being a a uh medical equipment planner is to bring all my knowledge that I developed over these years, 26 plus years, and come back here and really help get this program off and really be successful at it.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I think all the skill sets that I bring over is gonna be a great attribute to all of our clients, our partners that we're gonna be working with in the future here, um, because uh knowing all the logistics of things that I've developed over the years is gonna be a great asset to everybody.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us a little bit about the conversation.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, who approached whom?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh number two, uh, what type of a conversation did you have about building a program with St.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Ange?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and how do you uh and how do you feel about uh are you excited about going forward with it?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us tell us the story of how you came to St.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Age.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, it was it was actually um it was great when I decided that, you know, very recently that you know it was time for me to to get to what I really truly wanted to do.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_02: And was this because I really wanted to basically finish my whole career, which you know, at Banner to do medical equipment planning.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um but with the uncertainty of what happened then, I wasn't sure where we're gonna go with it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: So now having this opportunity, I said I was determined, I go, you know what, I want to get back into it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: So what I ended up doing was reaching out to, you know, just networking.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're networking with your with people that you know.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: And um one individual, one gal that I worked with at banner, I reached out to her and she told me about St.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Aunch.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, Hey, I did see something on LinkedIn about St.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: Aunch hiring, you know, a medical planner.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, fantastic.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I went on your guys' site, found it, uh, applied for it, and then shortly thereafter, um, Spock uh spoke to Jessica where we started that first you know intervention of you know what what uh we're you know St.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Audge was really looking for.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: And once I heard it was for a new development, a new business part for St.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Aunch, I got excited because one, I'm an entrepreneur by heart.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: I love I love trying to start up new things like this.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_02: And this to me really excited me that now we're breaking you know ground that St.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: Aunch hasn't really touched in this perspective.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we touched it, if you think about it, we're touching it in certain areas, but maybe not to the degree that we're trying to do now, right?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now we want to do all the medical equipment planning, uh, not just little bits and pieces.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I think bringing this all together is what really excites me, and just knowing that we have basically the freedom and I'm gonna say more the ideas with everybody that I'm collaborating with to really bring this program to build it, is gonna be great for us and great for our partners and and clients that we're gonna get here in the future.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because with all the experience that we have and everything we do at St.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Nodge, this is a great little piece um to add under our business um because it really adds a great value to a lot of our clients.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and looking from my experience as a uh supply chain leader over the years um and uh my experience in the last seven and a half years since I've been at St.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Ange, um I know that St.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Ange there's there's two types of of landing that I see.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: One is if there's a new build and you have equipment planning for a new build, but then there's those six thousand plus hospitals and systems out there that uh have it's a plan for the plan for uh acquiring and maintaining and choosing the equipment in their own systems.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And my observation over the years has been that's just been a catch is catch-can thing for most places and they have totally suboptimized and uh it's probably a glaring need.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Would you agree with that or am I wrong?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, I I totally agree with you on that, Fred, for sure.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's uh so so uh so that is I think something that I I I was at a meeting a couple years ago with a bunch of Air Force uh officers, colonels above, you know, high-level Air Force officers.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I asked this question, I said, Hey, you know, um how come our defense budget is like nine hundred and seventy billion dollars and uh the uh other countries uh defense budget is so small.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Where is the cost?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as the colonel told me, it's in capital, it's in equipment, it's in the it's in the stuff we need.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in the people.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I my you know, you think about that in terms of uh healthcare system, uh they got a huge expenditure out there uh to manage in in uh equipment.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: So uh and it's often been overlooked.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of done on a year-by-year basis in the capital budget where everybody's fighting for what they want instead of planning for what they need.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, it it is.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's a you know, it's bigger than what most people think of you know the financial portion of it because you know technology changes quite often.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you're looking at imaging side anywhere from you know seven on year years up, you know, technology changes so so rapidly.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you're you're looking at uh you know a CT, you know, between seven and twelve years that people are starting to look at.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um Cap labs a little bit longer, you know, but things like that.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: And and it's very crucial to you know do that capital planning in regards to that, because you know, one of the things that um we did very well at the last company I was at was capital planning.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we did a five-year plan, you know, for our customers.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it was part of our program that we developed that.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, some of it's a good eye awakening because a lot of it they didn't realize how much behind, but how much things cost because they might have let some equipment go past uh its you know end of life or its service life.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, some things you could get away with it, but that really adds up pretty fast.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: And when you start thinking, you know, in the past, when you start looking at going, oh, we're okay, we still got three more years, let's say, for a C T before it hits end of life, and now that CT is three million dollars.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a you know, that's a big chunk for a lot of hospitals to be able to, you know, be able to afford it and and start looking at that.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: So when we start developing and working with the capital planning portion, it's really great.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's one thing that you know that we do really good at St.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: Aunch as well is you know, we're vendor agnostics, so we're gonna come in and help them and guide those that needed some assistance.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we could help them bring in um whatever manufacturers that they want to, you know, look at.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we could I could use my expertise of what I gathered over the years and and provide that information for them if you know if if needed, uh you know what what equipment or what aspects of it might be a little bit different from one manufacturer to the other.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe kind of what is um being looked at you know nationwide as you know who is the leader in certain modalities.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um those things that you know really we could bring to the table and just add value to it to help them make the best decision that they get, you know, that they can for the equipment.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what I'm really looking forward to is having those collaborations as well.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Before we dive back in, you may be asking yourself, is my supply chain future ready?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: We don't just optimize logistics, we engineer smarter, leaner, and more resilient systems from end to end, from manufacturing up to retail to healthier.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Our experts bring decades of experience in cutting in strategies and transform your operations and discover how we're shaping the future of supply chain one solution at a time.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh in the course of your uh career, what what has been your most uh rewarding project and why?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, great question.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Fred, I I would say you know, all the aspects that I've done throughout my career working for you know really great companies, the the the biggest one that was the most satisfaction was the one at Banner building new um hospital.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Being able to interact with people there of you know seeing it being in design on paper, being a part of the initial stages when we, you know, banner we hired the uh the architect firm, sitting right at the beginning when we're seeing you know user groups meetings, how they want this space to be worked, and you know, it starts off with just a box.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you've got let's say 10,000 square feet in this box.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so and so what how do you want, you know, how is your workflow?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_02: How do you like to see this done?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then that you know, the design team will come back with with certain aspects and they're fine-tuning back and forth.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sitting in these meetings, and you know, while I'm listening to this, I'm also thinking, and maybe asking questions to the end users of certain medical equipment, you know, where is this gonna live?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, especially something that has infrastructure, you know, so it's always these great collaborations, and it's very vital that uh while I add to uh Fred at this as well as I uh elaborate on it is you know, if we have clients that are listening to this, make sure we could get um included the earlier the better, um, just because we need to, it's great for us to get a good understanding of how the workflow that department's going to be.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so if it's in the designs design phase, we need to be a part of that so we could be, you know, hear all those things, and maybe we'll add some value there in those times of dialogues, like, oh, what about this equipment?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Where would that live at?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: So they could start designing that space.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that was one of the things we did very well when I was at at Banner, is we had some really, I mean, right at the very beginning, dialogues of with the architect firms and end users, and then being able to see it from paper to getting things coordinated to get installed, to then seeing the final product.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I in all honesty, when you see people's faces like, wow, this looks beautiful.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm part of that too, saying, Wow, this looks great, right?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: How this turned out.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_02: I can't get any more excited than that.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, I I love being an operations uh manager and working with customers to help build the business and that aspect, but there's really nothing that I woke up in the morning very excited to go into work was when I did that that was doing that project down there for Banner for the medical equipment plan because it there's nothing, you know, being an engineer, you you love fixing things, you see that it works afterwards, you're like, hoorah, I got it, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: And then this is how this was the same thing, it's that instant um gratification when everything that you work all these months or years on to develop and make sure it gets done and installed completed is so satisfying that uh it's it's hard to express the gratification that you get from it, other than you know, just keep doing it and going out there and make others smile because you know you're adding value to um your.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: client you you know you're bringing in excellent patient care when you're being a part of that and and also you know what what it's bringing to the community of that area with you know the new either being a uh new hospital or being like this one was because this here I would say had really enhanced the community of Tucson when we built this because they hadn't had anything like this down there.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it it was it was pretty much I would say it would be that one right well you know one one thing you said early on in that response and I think it's important uh for people to uh keep in mind the best consultants uh are the best because they know what questions to ask and and um in my experience many times the reasons consultants come in to a to an organization is because your organizations are so focused on what they do so minutely focused on on the day-to-day activities for example that they don't they don't have the wherewithal to ask they miss the questions they should be asking and uh how many times have you found yourself in situations where you ask questions uh that the folks had missed themselves that led to better decisions?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah I I think it's it was constantly on that project and and even all the other smaller projects I did right before we started kicking off of this new build it's on a day-to-day basis because you know a lot of times is you know end users you know they're you know they're just like us well well we might get on a roll about you know talking about something and then all of a sudden we forgot a couple key aspects so that's why we're there to really help I would say more remind people about certain aspects like oh hey where would you know for example where would this defibrillator live because they're not thinking down to that level they're like oh yeah we need a place for that I mean this happened many times over there saying okay where were we need to build an alcove here so we'll work you know the architect firm is is there as well and they're listening to this and they're like oh where would that where would this live so we could build an alcove because maybe in a design didn't have an alcove at the time so that's why it's really crucial that I say that we get in early on there in a design base because we could add that value to it.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know it we're we're gonna bring we're gonna find things that might get just overlooked um are you know not not that it's forgotten it's just because they're so in everything else you kind of well things slip your mind you know it happens we're humans right it it it slips and then that's why we're here because we're thinking at a different level they're thinking of how the workflow is and we're thinking okay medical equipment how does that interact with workflow where would that all these pieces live in that workflow because it's very vital where I would say with the defibrillator where that lives in a department because of workflow.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: How can you get to it fast and how to you get to the patient fast right um so it's knowing that spot um where they don't have to look for you always want a designation for things like that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know an alcove or something like that where it it's not in the hallway per se blocking the hallway but it's an alcove where it could be plugged in and ready to be used at any given moment.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well that that you know that is so great because I think you know what you said another thing you said earlier is while they give you 10,000 square feet they'll calculate the gross space that they need based on you know the size of all the equipment and at a gross level but then figuring out specifically where stuff goes is an entirely different uh circumstance.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: So uh what advice would you give healthcare organizations planning a new facility or a major renovation?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah so one of the biggest advice is you know once you you hire on your architect firm um really to get the to get any medical equipment planner on soon thereafter I mean to me that's it's very vital to the success of the project to everything with the workflow just because uh depending especially on the the scope when it's a a a new hospital building the earlier the better because of the fact that just like I was saying a little bit earlier Fred is is trying to ask questions that um you know that that most may not think because we're so focused and driven on the medical equipment.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Just kind of like I was saying where where it's going to live that we need an alcove for it do we need an extra room for it that's not here in the drawing source things like that.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so so my advice is is to really try to get us involved uh the sooner the better um just so we have a good understanding of what that process that workflow plus uh process is for that department and then we can help make sure that we um that I would say when I say we the the hospital and us that we acknowledge and where certain um medical equipment should live um in the new space.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well Rich I tell you it's been great talking to you I would I would say one thing though you got to pump up your enthusiasm a little bit because you really you really don't sound you really don't sound like you enjoy what you're doing here that much.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_02: So but what really all joking aside uh what do you enjoy most about helping healthcare organizations uh achieve their goals here yeah you know Brad that that's an awesome question I love that question because throughout my whole career that I've been doing this the biggest thing I I truly enjoy is not only that you're working with great people in this business but you're working for people who care about other people you're there you're working for um people who want to take care of having the best excellent patient care and that's what I'm part of part of no matter what businesses I was a part of being a technician being an operations man a leader or being a medical equipment planner everything that I've done I looked at it as how can we improve patient care because once we can uh satisfy that we're gonna satisfy any of the hospitals any of the um staffing that we're working because they're gonna see that we focus with patient care and that's how I focused my whole career is bringing that and having that aspects and those thought process to everywhere I go to every customer that I've had um was just sharing that and knowing that that's our main outcome our main goal and our main focus is that is to to provide that excellent patient care at the end of the day.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well you know Rich um I I'm really it's very easy to see during this conversation that after 26 plus years in healthcare you have maintained your enthusiasm, your excitement about what you do that's pretty rare.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: By uh by by now a lot of folks are mailing it in if you know what I mean.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and uh you obviously ain't one of those folks.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so um as we break out this new service line at St.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Arange uh you're working for in my opinion and I'm I have enough experience to say this uh you're working for one of the best organizations in the country to work for and uh the fact that they are they are always trying to find things new to enter into that can bring more value to the customers and then finding a guy like you who's uh still raring to go after it after 26 years I think it's going to be great for everybody.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to welcome you aboard and thank you for stopping to talk with us and I know things are going to really go well for you.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah thanks Fred I really appreciate it and I I totally agree with you.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: The short you know I've only been here for a few weeks now and everybody I encountered is just fantastic.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: It really makes you feel like you're at home and I really feel like this is a fantastic company to be a part of and I'm thrilled the death to be here and I'm very excited to take this next step forward because uh St.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: Owens is a great company and we got great people and I know we're gonna do fantastic jobs for all our clients.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks again Brad I appreciate the time well that's all for today.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining us and don't forget to hit that subscribe button and connect with us online so you'll never miss an episode and can catch up on all the ones you might have missed.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Got a topic you're fired up about or maybe you want to be a guest on the show?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Brad would love to hear from you.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just reach out at F C R A N S at S T O N G E dot com.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time