Veterinary Teaching Hospital Equipment Should Not Be an After Thought. An Understanding of the Equipment Requirements Helps to Keep Costs in Line
Veterinary teaching hospitals typically treat more complex or rare conditions because they are geared toward educating the next generation of veterinarians and frequently function as regional centers of research and innovation. They also have access to necessary cutting edge and often costly equipment such as MRI, CT and other diagnostic equipment.
As such, it is crucial that faculty, staff, and facilities management provide input regarding where technology, patient and teaching trends are heading. Are they seeing an increase in a certain illness or injury? Are they experiencing a surge in patients from the surrounding area? Are they feeling an elevated need for remote learning and treatment? Are they producing graduates that meet the needs of the community? These types of variables and future considerations need to be thought through during the planning and design stages in order to truly deliver a program and facility that will graduate well-qualified doctors and provide outstanding patient care for decades to come.
That leads to the question of equipment: what are the spatial and structural requirements? what are the utility requirements, what stays, what goes and what can be repurposed? It is best to work with consultants or companies that have a good understanding of the veterinary medical equipment, the MEP / structural requirements and which is appropriate for relocation and reuse and / or nearing end-of-life. There are some companies that have in-house medical equipment professionals who closely monitor various medical equipment trends (a truly integrated equipment team). They offer owners turn-key services of equipment validation, design coordination, contract negotiation, procurement and installation as a way to alleviate the headaches and costly mistakes often overlooked during design and coordination when it comes to specialty and medical equipment.
