What GAO Found The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to buy and maintain high-tech medical equipment (HTME)—such as magnetic resonance imaging equipment—to deliver health care to veterans. To maintain this equipment, and help ensure its safe use, medical centers can purchase maintenance services—often from equipment manufacturers—using agencywide or stand-alone contracts. Agencywide contracts help VA leverage its buying power to obtain quality medical equipment at the best prices possible. VA’s approach to buying HTME, uses agencywide contracts that generally support equipment maintenance. But not all regional contracting officials use these contracts when buying maintenance services and some unknowingly duplicated other officials’ work by awarding their own contracts for the services. Example of High-Tech Medical Equipment GAO found VA procurement guidance contained inconsistent information about whether the agency-wide contracts for HTME are mandatory when purchasing maintenance services. Additionally, regional contracting officials found the national contracting office resources for purchasing maintenance services to be unclear. Clarifying these resources and guidance on whether agencywide HTME contracts are mandatory and how to appropriately use them would reduce administrative burden and could save the government time and money. Selected medical centers generally reported satisfaction with maintenance services, and equipment…
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High-Tech Medical Equipment: VA Has Opportunities to Improve Its Acquisition of Maintenance Services
Source: US GAO Reports — US Government, Public Domain