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CUSTOMERFEATURE
COST CONTROL
Cat® Dealer service pays dividends for New Mexico health care system
A
s the largest health care
provider in New Mexico,
Presbyterian Healthcare
Services strives to provide
the best services at the lowest cost.
To achieve that goal, the not-for-profit
network of eight hospitals and 22 clinics
works with its vendors to help keep costs
under control, and reinvests profits back
into the enterprise. With no shareholders
to satisfy, Presbyterian has reinvested
more than $350 million into health care
improvements in the last five years alone.
One of its vendors is Wagner Power
Systems, which provides standby power
in the form of multiple Cat® diesel
generators at seven facilities, including
four gensets at Presbyterian Hospital’s
main campus in Albuquerque.
Thanks to the reliable power it
receives from its main utility, Public
Service Co. of New Mexico, only in
rare instances do any of Presbyterian’s
array of Cat gensets come online. But,
as stipulated by NFPA 110, which
mandates that medical facilities have
standby power at the ready, Presbyterian
regularly tests and maintains the Cat
gensets to make sure they are run ready.
The maintenance is performed with the
help of Wagner technicians.
CSAs tailored to customer needs
At seven Presbyterian health
care facilities throughout the state,
Wagner technicians perform regular
maintenance on all of the generators,
as well as tending to any issues that
Customer Profile
Presbyterian Healthcare
Services
LOCATION: Albuquerque, N.M.
APPLICATION: Standby power
may arise with engines and generators,
the electrical switchgear, and the
paralleling switchgear.
As part of a Customer Support
Agreement (CSA), Wagner tailors
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CAT® EQUIPMENT
Presbyterian Hospital (main campus):
D3412, D3516B, D3516C, D399
Socorro General Hospital: D3406
Presbyterian Espanola Hospital: D3412
Rust Medical Center: D3516C
Kaseman Hospital: D3512C
PAC Data Center: D3412 and C15
SUMMER 2013
Rehab Center: D3412
CUSTOMERFEATURE
its support service to the needs of
Presbyterian Healthcare Services. At
Presbyterian Hospital, internal staff
performs the monthly testing and
various other checks, while Wagner
technicians come in and do quarterly
oil sampling, and more detailed
inspections.
A lot of facilities have people who are
well-trained to do certain things, but some
don’t have people to perform emergency
power repairs or troubleshooting, and
that’s where the Cat Dealer comes in,
says Albert Hutcherson, a product support
rep for Wagner.
“We can help them with switchgear,
ATS, genset packages—whatever they
need,” Hutcherson says. “If they need
support for non Cat components that are
part of their system, we can help there,
too, by getting them on the same page
with their other suppliers. That CSA
program helps a lot. It can be tailored
to fit whatever the customer needs to
supplement their internal capabilities.”
“We want to build a relationship
with all of our major vendors,” adds
David Honeycutt, manager of facility
engineering. “We are working hard as
a health care organization to bring the
price of health care down. When we are
able to develop those relationships it
helps our bottom line. And we have done
a good job with Wagner—they have
come to us with ideas that have saved us
a tremendous amount of money.”
For example, performing oil changes
typically requires that a rental generator
is brought to a facility and hooked up
while the oil is changed on a standby
generator. Kaseman is a full-service
hospital, with only one generator, so
when the genset is out of service, the
cost of bringing in a rental generator
can add up. Wagner has recommended
SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION
Extended interval oil changes reduce oil waste
Customers participating in a Customer Support Agreement (CSA)
through their local Cat® Dealer have the option to triple their oil
drain intervals on their generators, thus reducing waste oil disposal
by 67 percent.
In addition to protecting the environment, the optional extended
oil drain program provides value to customers using Cat generator
sets by lowering maintenance costs.
At Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque, N.M., a technician from
Wagner Power Systems performs all of the Level 2 and Level 3
maintenance on the generators, taking quarterly oil samples for
analysis, and changing the oil every three years.
On the large generators alone—including two D3516s, and the
older D399—those units combined would require 550 gallons of
oil a year to replace. By going to the extended oil-change interval,
Presbyterian Hospital saves about $10,000 per year, not to mention
the expense of having the waste oil hauled away.
“Not only does it save us money, but as far as being environmentally conscious and using less oil, this enables us to be greener by
reducing our use of oil,” says energy center supervisor Bill Maier.
Quarterly oil sampling helps predict any potential signs of wear in
the engines, says Albert Hutcherson, a product support representative with Wagner Power Systems.
Wagner technicians take regular samples of engine oil, coolant, and
fuel, and send them to a dedicated Cat lab for analysis.
“For example, it can tell you over the years if the radiator is starting
to fail,” Hutcherson says. “You will know it in advance, you will start
to get higher lead in your testing. That is why we go quarterly on the
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engines, you have to know what is going on inside the engines—to
catch problems before any failures occur.”
Detailed Requirements
The extended oil-drain interval option is available to customers
with diesel standby generator sets rated from 200 kW to 5.3 MW,
and who are enrolled in a Cat Dealer Customer Support Agreement
that includes the following:
• Cat diesel engine oil is changed every 36 months
(or at recommended engine hours)
• Cat engine oil filters are changed annually
• Cat fuel filters are changed annually
• Cat air filters changed as needed
• Distillate diesel fuel test annually
• Cat diesel engine coolant changed annually
• Use of Cat S•O•SSM Services Fluids Analysis Program
ISSUE NUMBER 14
CUSTOMERFEATURE
several options for changing the oil
without taking the engine offline,
Honeycutt says.
Wagner also performs maintenance on
the generators during off hours at night
at various locations, including North
Side Hospital, so that emergency power
systems remain operational during
normal work hours.
“We have this issue at other locations,
too,” Honeycutt says. “Those are the
kinds of ideas that Wagner brings to us.
As a value-added service, Wagner
provides Presbyterian Hospital with a
24/7 toll-free number for emergency
calls that connect directly to a person
who is familiar with the Presbyterian
account. Once connected, the operator
keeps Presbyterian personnel online until
they can speak with a Wagner manager
or technician.
Regular testing
The four generators at Presbyterian’s
main hospital campus run about 30 hours
each, annually.
“We test them every month,” says
Energy Center supervisor Bill Maier. “We
go through our normal testing process—
we activate all of the automatic transfer
switches, and let them tell the generators
to start, and we run them for an hour
under full load, and then reverse the
process to move into shutdown mode.”
All four generators combined provide
about 2.2 MW of power, enough to
handle the critical functions at the
1.2 million square-foot main hospital
campus. All of the gensets are on
standby mode and are synchronized to
the bus while operating in parallel.
Two 30,000-gallon underground
diesel fuel tanks are located beneath a
parking lot adjacent to the Energy Center
building, which houses the generators.
Monthly inspections are performed
on the fuel tanks per EPA and state
regulations. Wagner assists with the
annual fuel quality testing.
From a main control room in the
energy center, Maier and his staff
monitor all environmental systems for
Presbyterian’s hospitals, and are able to
make adjustments.
“We monitor all of the incoming power
and our generators,” Maier says. “We can
look at the history to determine if we have
any issues, if it’s us or the incoming feed.”
Reliable performance and the ability
to achieve cost savings with its vendors
makes for a good relationship, Maier
says.
“The combination of Cat products and
Wagner support services provides us with
a comfort level—not to mention favorable
owning and operating costs.”
A COMMITMENT
TO NEW MEXICO
Based in Albuquerque, N.M., Presbyterian
Healthcare Services is a not-for-profit
system of eight hospitals, 22 clinics,
a health plan and a growing medical
group. Presbyterian employs about 9,000,
including more than 500 physicians and
practitioners.
As New Mexico’s only private, not-forprofit health care system, Presbyterian
is the state’s largest provider of health
care with 400,000 members in its health
plan. The Presbyterian Medical Group
offers care at more than 30 different
locations throughout New Mexico,
handling more than 1.2 million annual
patient visits.
Presbyterian Healthcare Services was
ranked sixteenth in the latest evaluation of the 100 most highly integrated
health care networks in the nation.
The report was featured in Modern
Healthcare and was conducted by SDI,
which is considered the nation’s premier
rating system for evaluating health care
networks based on their performance
and degree of integration.
In 2011, Presbyterian Hospital was
selected as one of the top 65 hospitals
in the nation from a field of nearly 1,200
by the Leapfrog Group.
Energy Center supervisor Bill Maier monitors incoming power at Presbyterian Hospital.
SUMMER 2013
As a 2011 top hospital, Presbyterian
Hospital met standards for safe, high
quality care, which includes medication
safety, intensive care unit physician
staffing and high-risk prevention for
surgeries.
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