Medical device manufacturers can reduce downtime without expanding field headcount by preventing avoidable failures, resolving more issues remotely, equipping technicians with the right knowledge and parts, and prioritizing dispatches by clinical and operational impact. The objective is to make each service decision more timely, informed, and effective.

At the 2026 event, Pasha Arshadi, VP Global Service Solutions at Quest, described the shift from reactive repair to prevention as both a resource and customer-value challenge. "The goal is really to minimize the downtime, the reactive service events… and go to that more predictive model," he said. That requires leaders to consider the cost of an outage for the provider, patient, hospital, and OEM, then organize service resources around avoiding the most consequential disruptions.

A related conference discussion showed that proactive operations depend on connecting asset information with technician expertise, available parts, logistics, and dispatch activity. When those elements are coordinated, organizations can identify likely issues earlier, direct scarce expertise toward higher-priority work, and improve resolution consistency without relying on more on-site visits.

Service and operations leaders should start with one device family or failure mode that produces repeat visits, extended downtime, or high clinical impact. Create a baseline for outage frequency, time to resolution, first-time fix, and parts availability; then combine service history, technician observations, and available equipment data to define a preventive intervention, remote-support option, or targeted dispatch rule.

Join Service Next Medical to explore how medical device service leaders are using predictive service models, connected operations, and workforce enablement to protect uptime at scale.