A well-respected surgical group requests a new surgical device that they swear will revolutionize how surgery is performed in your hospital. The price tag is well into seven figures, with significant annual maintenance and training costs. A competing hospital is advertising to consumers that they have the device.

You analyze the potential return on investment (ROI) on this device, and it just doesn’t make sense. It’s more expensive than the technology that the hospital is currently using, and insurance companies won’t pay more for procedures done with this new device. It’s unclear how many surgeries will be appropriate applications of this device, and you question whether patient care or clinical outcomes will improve. Some surgeries have to be converted to standard surgeries midstream due to complications.

The surgeons argue that they are losing business by not having access to this new equipment, they aren’t seen as a cutting edge practice group, and prospective patients are going to the cross-town hospital instead.

If you are like most hospitals, you relent despite the negative ROI. You chalk it up to the cost of marketing and physician retention and look the other way. There’s an uneasy feeling that these resources could have been invested elsewhere, with a much bigger effect on quality of care.

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