FHL NEWS

Integrity and Ethics Make FHL a Go-To Laboratory Service Company!

by Astrid Fiano, reporter

Jason Fisher, Account Manager of FHL Services, Inc. in Albertville, MN, has a personal spirit that reflects the strength and integrity of FHL in general. Fisher is recently returning to work after being on medical leave, recovering from a traumatic brain injury due to an accident. He asked DOTMED News to report that he is back in full force, working with Robert Teachman, owner of FHL since September 2007. Fisher finds something to be positive about each day, and brings that attitude to his work at FHL.

FHL specializes in servicing lab instrumentation across the United States. Founded in Minnesota thirty years ago, the company has a small but industrious work force, and has service contracts with various clientele in hospitals, clinics, universities, and with veterinarians. FHL refurbishes and repairs equipment, often traveling to labs in order to perform hands-on troubleshooting. The company also sells a limited amount of new and refurbished equipment, such as clinical chemistry and clinical hematology analyzers.

Chemistry analyzers are the most frequently serviced instruments. FHL is the nationwide service expert on the Roche Cobas Mira series of biochemistry analyzers. FHL handles service, parts, reagents and consumables for the Roche instruments. Fisher says the manufacturer is discontinuing service for the Roche series in June of 2008, but FHL will still support service of the instruments.

Most of the work in repairing lab equipment involves basic wear and tear of the internal mechanics. FHL also specializes in preventive maintenance. Fisher believes that FHL stands apart from other lab service companies by the experience of its biomedical engineers, who are familiar with all aspects of the laboratory industry and know mechanics of the instruments intimately. The technicians become factory-trained on any new instrument, becoming experts on the equipment, and rely on good communication with each other in order to be a real team.

FHL has an extensive inventory of parts and makes sure through its in-house quality control that equipment meets or exceeds manufacturers' specs. New chemistry analyzers are coming on the market with technology that creates a lower cost per test in the lab. FHL will test new chemical analyzers, and determine which are the most reliable and the best for a particular lab's needs, rather than the most expensive-using the techs' research to help a lab be most profitable. Before FHL agrees to service an instrument, it will make sure that the techs know the equipment thoroughly.

FHL also believes that fair treatment of the client is foremost. FHL's top selling point is a strong adherence to ethics-more important than ever in the new frontier of internet sales and service. Fisher says that DOTMED has been very helpful to FHL for several years as a forum to sell, buy and find new people to work with. Jason feels that the DOTMED certification process dovetails with the ethical standards of FHL, through weeding out unethical dealers and showing FHL's up-front business practices that best serve its clientele.