June 05

Quality Comes First For Customer-Centric Quest Int'l
by Julie E. Williamson

Since its inception 23 years ago, Irvine, CA-based Quest International Inc. has been offering customers a high
quality, cost-effective alternative to new medical imaging peripherals. The company offers repair, sales, loaners and exchanges for virtually all medical imaging peripherals, including medical LCDs, medical display monitors, VCRs, VTRs, CRTs and workstations.

Those familiar with Quest know the company has made a longstanding commitment to quality and customer satisfaction – key factors that have made Quest one of the nation’s most highly respected and fastest growing imaging display and peripherals repair centers. Not only is Quest ISO 9001:2000 Registered, the company tests all products before they leave the facility, including brand-new, off-the-shelf items. Further underscoring Quest’s commitment to customer service, the sales team makes it a top priority to ask the right questions and fully understand the customer’s application and needs before offering a solution. Put simply, it’s about fostering effective long-term relationships, as opposed to simply making a quick sale.

Bill Greenblatt, Quest’s vice president of sales and marketing, offers insight into the key factors behind the company’s long-term success, including the value of building effective, trusting relationships with both OEMs and healthcare customers, maintaining ISO Registration, and building a bigger and better product and service portfolio.

Q: How do customers benefit from Quest’s ISO 9001:2000 Registration?

A: ISO is a very significant quality management system that is accepted around the world. ISO is an ongoing, everyday process for which companies are audited annually to make sure they are abiding by those quality standards they have implemented within their organization. In the healthcare industry, that is very significant because departments need to have accountability for the products they provide and service that has been performed on them. ISO is one of our ways of ensuring that the quality standards that we have put into place for many years now are actually abided to every day. It takes a full-time corporate commitment to not only achieve ISO Registration, but also to maintain it.

Q: Aside from ISO, what else differentiates Quest from other companies in the medical imaging peripheral repair industry?

A: Quest has a very knowledgeable and trained staff. One of our primary goals is to learn about customers’ needs and identify what is in their best interest; for example, whether a repair or complete refurbishment of an imaging peripheral is the best solution as opposed to an exchange. We determine that based on numerous factors, such as how long that peripheral will be in use, a facility’s immediate and long-term plans for that modality or system, etc. One of the things that we do exceptionally well is work with and provide services on legacy equipment that has been out of production for 5-10 years. We have the ability to work with the customer to provide repair services, refurbishment and exchanges, and also work with them to determine which newer display technology—be it CRT or LCD—will meet their needs. We work with the customer to learn about their current systems being used, the model of the modality, the manufacturer, etc. and then use our computer database system—which is very specialized—to identify which solutions are available to best meet their needs.

Q: Can you describe Quest’s facilities?

A: Quest’s facility is located in the heart of Southern California’s Orange Country, just 20 miles south of Los Angeles County. Our facility is 45,000 square feet and is home to 80 employees. In addition to warehouse facilities at the corporate office, Quest has three warehouses for refurbished peripherals. With more than 5,000 medical monitors in stock, Quest is able to provide overnight delivery of loaners or exchange of new and refurbished displays for most modalities.

Q: Quest is an authorized repair facility for a number of equipment manufacturers. How significant is it to develop and maintain those relationships?

A: Very significant. For at least 19 of the 23 years that we have been in business we have had strong partnerships with and for many of the medical OEMs, both in terms of repair and sourcing of new and replacement equipment. That has really helped educate us on the technology being utilized and the systems that are available.

We work with more than 80% of the world’s OEMs in the medical imaging peripheral segment. That is because of our expertise and commitment to ISO, as well as our commitment to bending over backwards to meet the needs of our customers. We are an authorized repair facility for Clinton, Fimi, Ikegami, Image Systems, Lexmark, Mitsubishi, Orwin, Panasonic, Sony and Totoku. In addition, Quest is an authorized Totoku Medical Display Master Distributor, as well as an authorized NEC reseller for medical display monitors and large screen displays. As part of being an authorized service center, we are required to undergo quarterly or annual onsite audits of our facility, repair processes, inventory, paperwork, documentation, etc. When you have some of the world’s leading manufacturers of medical imaging peripherals that entrust their in and out of warranty repair to Quest, that is a testament to our quality and expertise.

Because we have worked with so many different facilities over the years, and also have good relationships with OEMs, we can take the information we learn from our customers and share it with our OEM partners to develop technology that meet the needs of healthcare organizations. In working with our customers, we were able to identify that many of the medical LCDs were being deployed in various areas throughout the hospital with high levels of ambient lighting. We were able to take that information to our partner, which in this case was Totoku, and define the needs of the hospitals and then offer our customers two of the very highest brightness medical LCDs available—in grayscale, or color. We were also able to offer a standard 5-year warranty, which is virtually unheard of.

Q: Quest has recently added new product offerings. Can you tell us about those and the value they will bring to your customers?

A: Quest has recently added mobile display carts, large screen displays and a stainless steel bezel to its product portfolio. Again, we are an authorized reseller for a number of different manufacturers, with the most recent being Totoku, NEC and Sony Medical Equipment. The significance is that we have access to the latest technology available to the medical industry, whether it’s something that will serve as a direct replacement for older legacy equipment or as part of a new system expansion—be it for patient monitoring, a PACS system, an emergency department or an operating room. As part of this level of service we provide, we can look at the real needs of the customer and provide them with one or multiple solutions, depending on their individual needs.

Our addition of mobile carts has helped facilities reduce their capital expenditures. They can purchase fewer displays because they can be physically moved from one part of the facility to another. Many healthcare facilities are looking to replace their older CRT-based displays with newer LCDs. We have commercially available LCD solutions that can allow a facility to simply remove their current CRT display and replace it with a specialized Quest LCD solution that will be a plug-and-play, both in terms of connection and mounting applications.

We are seeing two trends as they relate to medical LCDs: a decrease in the price of the technology, as well as more competition: both of which are good for the industry. From a competitive standpoint, we have taken a different approach. For Quest, it isn’t about buying a box and selling a box. It’s about providing value-added services and working with customers to educate them on the different options and customized solutions that are available. Our key focus is knowledge and information.

Q: What does the future look like for Quest in regard to new product and service offerings?

A: Quest plans to continue to listen to the needs of its customers and supply them with the very best products and services they need to effectively perform their job. Technology, features and pricing will continue to drive the healthcare space, and Quest looks forward to bringing its customers cost-effective solutions for maintaining their efficiency with new and refurbished peripherals. A necessary part of being competitive is not only offering quality products, but also offering prompt service and fast delivery at affordable prices. Quest is exceptional in regard to these important business considerations.

We are always looking at existing technology and what will become of it in the near future. We aim to stay one step ahead of these changes, so when products and parts are no longer available we will be able to provide the appropriate replacement solutions, taking into account the technology and cost of that technology.

For more information about Quest International, contact them at 800-231-6777or visit www.questinc.com.