Regardless of the various titles, these professionals offer services within and outside of healthcare settings to enhance the safety, utilization, and performance on medical devices, applications, and systems.
They are a fundamental part of managing, maintaining, or designing medical devices, applications, and systems for use in various healthcare settings, from the home and the field to the doctor's office and the hospital.
HTM includes the business processes used in interaction and oversight of the technology involved in the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of patients.
Once an equipment control number is established, the device is safety inspected and readied for delivery to clinical and treatment areas in the facility.
Work order management includes all safety, preventive, calibration, test, and repair services performed on all such medical devices.
Randomly selected work orders should place more stringent statistical controls based on the clinical criticality of the device involved.
The data needed to establish basic, accurate, maintainable automated records for medical equipment management includes: nomenclature, manufacturer, nameplate model, serial number, acquisition cost, condition code, and maintenance assessment.
Other useful data could include: warranty, location, other contractor agencies, scheduled maintenance due dates, and intervals.
These fields are vital to ensure appropriate maintenance is performed, equipment is accounted for, and devices are safe for use in patient care.
Several other management tools, such as equipment replacement planning and budgeting, depreciation calculations, and at the local level literature, repair parts, and supplies are directly related to one or more of these fundamental basics.
The Joint Commission publishes annual lists detailing “National Patient Safety Goals” to be implemented by healthcare organizations.
Goals are developed by experts in patient safety nurses, physicians, pharmacists, risk managers, and other professionals with patient-safety experience in a variety of settings.
This program helps the medical treatment facility avoid the likelihood of equipment-related risks, minimize liability of mishaps and incidents, and stay compliant with regulatory reporting requirements.
IEC 80001 "applies to RESPONSIBLE ORGANIZATIONS, MEDICAL DEVICE manufacturers and other providers of information technologies for the purpose of comprehensive RISK MANAGEMENT".
Courses of study include a sound background in mechanical, chemical, or industrial engineering, and specialized biomedical training.
Biomedical engineers may work primarily in one or a combination of the following fields: • bioinformatics – developing and using computer tools to collect and analyze data.
• bio-nano-engineering – developing novel structures of nanometer dimensions for application to biology, drug delivery, molecular diagnostics, microsystems and nanosystems.
• medical or biological imaging – combining knowledge of a physical phenomenon (for example, sound, radiation or magnetism) with electronic processing, analysis and display.
• molecular bioengineering – designing molecules for biomedical purposes and applying computational methods for simulating biomolecular interactions.