New research from Siemens Healthcare's Financial Services unit (SFS) shows that finance is playing an important role in enabling medical equipment acquisition for healthcare organizations.
According to a study conducted by independent organization MindMetre Research of executives with the global top 40 medical equipment manufacturers, close to 70% of respondents have seen an increased demand for healthcare equipment finance from their customers over the last two years. The proportion of global medical equipment sales financed through asset finance has grown by an average of 6.9% annually, SFS said.
Two-thirds of respondents reported that their healthcare customers are feeling pinched in terms of capital budgets. More than half (57%) reported increased demand for tailored financing for healthcare organizations to acquire new equipment. Nearly two-thirds (64%) also observed customers' increasing application of total cost of ownership methodologies in equipment acquisition evaluation, which reflects the demand for financing techniques that can embrace other associated costs (installation, service, lifetime maintenance, upgrades, etc.) over and above the cost of purchase, SFS said.
The research also revealed that, instead of owning medical equipment, healthcare organizations are increasingly embracing "cost to use" methods of equipment acquisition, which respondents expect will further fuel demand for financing methods.
