ICE Magazine is excited to introduce Centella in this month’s issue.
Centella is a longtime Siemens Healthineers Advanced Partner, offering sales and service across South Florida. The company recently launched its Health Technology Solutions (HTS) arm – which specializes in multivendor imaging and biomed equipment services and can support all the technology needs of Centella’s healthcare systems customers. HTS is new to the Centella umbrella, but it’s already creating buzz for its responsiveness and hands-on approach. We spoke with Gonzalo Diaz III, CEO of Centella, to learn more about what Centella does, and how it supports radiology teams across the region.
Q: What Does Centella do, and What Makes You Different?
A: We rebranded from Med-Lab to Centella when we realized that healthcare systems in South Florida were struggling to obtain prompt, expert service for their imaging equipment – particularly when they had machines from multiple manufacturers. The direct impact is a delay in diagnosis, which can regularly be life threatening. They were having to work with two, three, or more service vendors, creating a juggling act at the best of times and a fire drill when they experienced unplanned downtimes.
HTS is a direct response to that situation. We bring together engineers with experience and certifications across all major imaging equipment manufacturers, meaning we can maintain and service just about anything a hospital or imaging center has on site. And because our engineers are exclusively based in South Florida, we’ve reduced turnaround times to hours, not days. It sounds simple, but that level of speed isn’t the norm in this industry.
Q: Who do You Typically Work With?
A: Mostly hospitals and outpatient imaging centers. A lot of the people we work with are directors or managers of imaging departments. We also coordinate with biomedical engineering departments, depending on the healthcare system. Imaging departments are regularly understaffed and have a difficult challenge of maintaining patient throughput with sporadic operational obstacles. If your scanner is down, that’s a backlog of patients and lost revenue, not to mention a clinical disruption. So, it’s not just about fixing equipment. It’s about minimizing downtime and helping teams stay available to meet the needs of our community.
Q: What are Your Goals for the Near Future?
A: Right now, it’s mostly about growing without compromising quality. We’ve had more and more facilities reaching out to us for service coverage, so we’re adding more engineers, tightening up logistics, and making sure our identity to the community is not diluted.
We’ve also been working on ways to keep customers informed with timely and valuable information. For example, giving customers better visibility into what’s been done on a system or when the next PM is due. That’s the kind of thing that helps build trust and makes service less of a headache.
Q: Anything Else You Want ICE Readers to Know?
A: Just that we want to be valuable members of the healthcare community; their lives aren’t easy, but if they can focus more time on patient interaction (rather than on broken equipment) then everyone involved has a better experience and outcome. We can’t help the patients, but we can manage and resolve your technical problems. We want to be where you need us when you need us and see if we can exceed your expectations. If you’re in South Florida and looking for more than help, but a reliable and responsive service partner, please reach out.
For more information, visit centellahealthtech.com.
