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May 27, 2025

When Outsourcing Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) Becomes a Strategic Move

The quality of your healthcare technology management (HTM) program is the difference between providing reliable care with well-maintained equipment and shuffling the schedule when something breaks. The right HTM program gets you out of the endless break-fix cycle and into a unified plan to proactively manage all equipment performance and risk.

But who should run your program — your in-house team or an external partner? Here are some factors to determine if outsourcing HTM makes sense for your organization.

The concerns with outsourcing HTM

Health care executives navigate many choices to outsource vs. maintain an in-house team — and it’s the same for HTM.

Valid concerns create tension between the two options:

Knowledge: Will we lose institutional knowledge if we outsource?
Staffing: How could outsourcing impact staff retention?
Control: How much control will we have over quality and response times?
Integration: Can outsourced teams work seamlessly within our clinical workflows?
Security and compliance: Will outsourcing complicate data security, privacy and compliance?
Cost: What is the up-front investment, and will this cost more or save money in the long run?

The benefits of an outsourced HTM partner

Amid these legitimate concerns, health care leaders still find several compelling advantages to partnering with external providers for HTM, many of which help them achieve their 2025 strategic supply chain goals:

Specialized expertise – HTM service providers employ specialists across diverse manufacturers and can provide expertise that might be difficult to maintain in-house. They offer objective guidance on purchases, rentals and upgrades.
Potential cost savings – Outsourcing has the potential to reduce overall expenses through economies of scale. Efficiencies add up when you multiply it by multiple hospitals in a system.
Staffing flexibility and coverage – External providers can more easily scale staff up or down based on needs, provide 24/7 coverage, and handle temporary surge requirements without the challenges of direct hiring.
Technology and process standardization – HTM service providers often implement industry best practices, standardized documentation, and consistent workflows that enhance the quality, compliance and cybersecurity of an equipment fleet.
Reduced administrative burden – Outsourcing can free health care leadership from managing the consequences of equipment downtime, allowing greater focus on core patient care operations.
Equipment lifecycle management – Service providers typically offer comprehensive asset management, including procurement guidance, preventative maintenance scheduling, conscious rentals and end-of-cycle planning.
Access to advanced analytics – Many HTM service providers offer sophisticated analytics and reporting that surpass in-house solutions and take advantage of on-hand data.
Risk sharing – Service level agreements with financial penalties can transfer some operational and compliance risks to the service provider.

How to reap the benefits without the drawbacks

Not all HTM partners are created equal. Poorly run HTM programs can steadily drain your finances, where strategic providers project future costs while recouping part of your investments. Reactive programs try to mitigate disruption to clinical workflows when a machine breaks down, but proactive ones seamlessly fit into patient care schedules.

Advantus Health Partners joined forces with GE HealthCare to offer a best-in-class HTM program. Its design overcomes many common complaints to deliver the benefits of outsourcing without the drawbacks.

Retain institutional knowledge and staff

In-house HTM staff develop deep familiarity with facility-specific equipment configurations, clinical workflows, and historical issues. Likewise, existing biomedical engineering teams often have strong relationships with clinical staff that could be disrupted by outsourcing.

Many leaders fear they will lose these advantages in a typical “firing and hiring” process for outsourcing — but that’s not how the Advantus program works.

“Just to give a little bit of context, about 85 to 90% of the staff stay with the program when it is outsourced,” says Mohamed El-Demerdash, GE HealthCare U.S. and Canada Services President. Those staff receive training to augment their knowledge and gain new tools and efficiencies.

GE HealthCare runs fully outsourced HTM programs at over 1,000 locations. This means they can learn what works and apply those lessons much faster than a solitary in-house team. And when staff turnover does happen, GE HealthCare’s standard processes and training programs quickly prepare new team members.

The end result: HTM teams continue to work seamlessly with clinical staff, understanding their specific needs and adapting equipment management to support patient care priorities while leveraging new economies of scale in process, pricing and knowledge.

Save money and share risk

A smaller hospital or solitary health system will see immediate benefits in purchasing power once they become part of a larger ecosystem. As part of the dedicated partnership between Advantus and GE HealthCare, GE HealthCare shares risk to control variable expenses. They also provide an uptime guarantee for mission-critical equipment and accept penalties for missed periodic maintenance.

Maintain data security and compliance

Medical equipment stores sensitive patient data, which requires third-party providers to properly protect it. Advantus leaders have roots as health care operators who understand the demands of data security and privacy and remain responsible for regulatory compliance oversight.