Back to all BlogsHow Digital Forms can Transform your Medical Equipment Servicing Business
An increasing number of Medical Equipment Servicing business owners are looking for ways to run their field teams more efficiently. To do this they need to optimise the time they can spend on jobs rather than how much is needlessly spent on admin tasks.
Old fashioned methods of collecting information from surveys, inspections and repairs such as using paper based forms are holding them back from completing more jobs for their medical and healthcare clients.
To help reduce wasted time, human error and speed up the process of gathering data from the field many are turning to Mobile Digital Forms.
What are Mobile Digital Forms?
Field Service Mobile Forms or eForms are used by service engineers or technicians who need a way to accurately record and store information from their jobs.
Most Field Service Management Software or Job Management Software includes a mobile app function for their field teams to access digital forms. Using the Software they can build their own bespoke Digital Forms to collect information or simple use industry standard templates on these apps to ensure they meet compliance or regulatory standards.
A Mobile Forms App is often just one part of a much larger and comprehensive Job Management Software system, that integrates job scheduling, dispatch, asset management, inventory management and Field Service finance tools.
Medical Equipment Servicing businesses no-longer need to invest large sums of money in hardware to complete eForms and other signature sign off from their client – this can now be done on a smartphone or tablet.
Why Medical Servicing Technicians need to record data from the field
Nearly all Medical or Healthcare Devices will need to have at least an annual inspection carried out on them to ensure they meet compliance and regulatory standards.
It’s the job of Medical Equipment Servicing business to make sure this work is scheduled, completed and all details of the job stored for future reporting purposes.
Information such as the condition of the equipment, parts used when repairing the asset or notes taken from the engineer during an inspection, all form part of a process to ensure the client has their equipment operating as cost effectively as possible, ensuring excellent patient care is maintained.
How Mobile Digital Forms are completed in the field
Field Service Engineers or Technicians have their assigned jobs sent directly to them via a Field Service Job App or Job Management App.
The job will include details such as client details, routing, floor-plans, documentation and manuals. It will also include links to any Digital Forms they need to complete for the job.
Once they log into their app and access their job they simply click on the form and begin completing the fields or workflows.
When the job is complete they can gather signature sign off and move onto the next medical device or sync everything back to the support team back in the office so an invoice can be raised.
7 reasons why Medical Equipment Servicing businesses use Mobile Digital Forms
Medical Equipment Servicing businesses need to efficiently deploy their teams to ensure all planned maintenance jobs are carried out. As with most Field Service businesses they also must balance their workload to accommodate reactive jobs they receive from their customers in need of help.
The Medical Equipment Servicing industry is highly competitive and the expectations of their customers have never been more demanding. Any competitive edge a business can gain through modernising their processes will help them improve how many jobs they can complete and the overall experience of their customer.
Here’s 7 reasons why Medical Equipment Servicing businesses use Mobile Digital Forms to make sure their customers’ equipment remains compliant and operational.
1. No more lost paperwork
Failing to get paperwork signed by the client or worse still losing it between the job and returning to the office will result in a delay in the invoice being paid and cause a poor experience for your customer.
When there’s a digital record of the work carried out that can be saved, accessed remotely and updated in real time, there’s no more concern around losing paperwork.
2. Ensure Medical Equipment meets compliance
Medical Equipment is often regulated by strict standards the devices have to meet. This means the equipment needs to be periodically serviced and certain checks need to be made and documented.
Mobile Digital Forms with mandatory fields for these required checks can be added to the form to ensure your customer’s equipment meets compliance and can be used for patient care.
3. Mistakes on forms costs your Field Service business time and money
When Klipboard asked 100 Field Service professionals what issues or mistakes cost their business the most amount of time – 30% said ‘Forms Not Being Completed properly’.
By creating standardised Digital Mobile Forms you can guarantee your field team are using the most up to date forms. Mandatory fields ensure not a single detail is missed and updating one form on a shared platform, will result in everyone playing from the same song sheet.
4. Easily capture photo evidence
Occasionally your Field Team will need to take pictures of medical equipment to document proof of it’s condition or the installation of a new part. Previously this would involve the picture being taken and then attached to emails, to be later updated on the asset record.
Mobile Digital Forms have simplified this by allowing the engineer or technician to simply take a picture directly from their phone and update the record in real time. No extra admin, no emails, it’s all updated at that moment.
5. Improved data mobility
Some Medical Equipment servicing businesses struggle to quickly gather all the details on an asset, a jobs or a collection of jobs for a client. Mostly this is due to them using multiple systems to log different sets of information.
When you use Job Management Software it’s much easier to pass information around your Medical Servicing business because it’s collected in a single platform. Using Cloud based software that incorporates a mobile app will ensure any details collected in the field using Digital Forms can be instantly used for reporting and invoicing.
6. Mobile Digital Forms simplify Medical Equipment Servicing audits
All data gathered on Medical Equipment servicing jobs is held in the event of an audit. This is particularly important for the medical and healthcare industry when investigations are often very extensive.
Many servicing businesses use digital methods of collecting records from jobs to ensure, if or when they are asked to provide details of service records in the event of an audit, they can do this in minutes rather than hours.
7. Improved Customer Experience
You can create a more streamlined and professional experience for your customer when your team uses Mobile Digital Forms.
Pre-populated and mandatory fields help improve the accuracy of the data collected and ensure all checks that need to be made to meet compliance are always completed. When you can finish a job without having to re-visit because of missed checks your customer has a better experience and your team works more efficiently.
How Job Management Software has transformed Medical Equipment Servicing
The introduction of Field Service Management Software changed how Field Service Engineers and Technicians record their work.
New hardware, expensive servers and custom built systems were introduced to service maintenance businesses and initially it greatly improved productivity.
Over the last few years the Medical Equipment Servicing industry has seen another big advancement with Cloud Based or Web Based Job Management Software.
New software systems such as Klipboard use Cloud Based technology to allow engineers to always be connected to the office.
Field Teams can access details from anywhere. Every Digital Form they complete or new asset they add to their register is quickly synced with their support team in the office in real time.
This switch to Cloud based systems has enabled a more integrated and better coordinated approach to medical equipment servicing.
“Going Paperless with Klipboard brings our business into the current Century” –
Chris Hysinger, Land Sea & Sky
Go beyond Mobile Digital Forms and use Klipboard to modernise your Medical Equipment Servicing Business
There are more opportunities out there for Medical Equipment Servicing businesses then just simply improving how they collect data from the field.
Beyond just helping you to go paperless with your job notes and form completion, Klipboard can help introduce efficiencies around your business and create a seamless experience for your customer.
Follow in the footsteps of these Medical Equipment Servicing businesses who greatly improved how they manage their medical servicing jobs by requesting a demo of Klipboard.
How much visibility do you have of service expiry dates?
Land Sea & Sky are one of the leading bio-medical servicing businesses in the US. The use Klipboard’s Asset Management features to keep on top of their customers medical device service expiry dates.
Chris Hysinger says, “Klipboard have revolutionised how we track and complete our medical asset services”
They no longer have to react at the last minute when their clients inform them of a need to get their equipment certified. At the click of a button they can clearly see which assets require servicing over the next week, month, 30 or 90 days.
Are you able to offer insight to your customer?
Blackdown Dental have far greater insight into the condition of their customer’s assets since they started using Klipboard as their Job Management Software. Gone are the days when their customers’ assets would require a repair and the same fix was consistently carried out.
Using data collected from service records in Klipboard they are able to spot frequently failing equipment and suggest the purchase of new Dental Equipment rather than repeating repairs.
This allows them to save their customer money and provides added value from their service.
Do you waste time gathering job details from several different systems?
With so much information collected in a Medical Equipment Servicing business, it’s a challenging task to gather all of it together to give a great service to your customer.
Sarah Betteley, owner of Deva Medical marvels at the fact they are able to access everything their need in a couple of clicks and their field team have everything they need at their fingertips.
Book a free no-obligation demo with our team today
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