What is a Clinical Engineer?
▪Clinical engineering is a specialty within Biomedical engineering responsible primarily for applying and implementing medical technology to optimise healthcare delivery. A Clinical Engineer is a professional who supports and advances patient care by applying engineering and managerial skills to healthcare technology. The department of Clinical Engineering plays an important role beginning from procurement process and facilitates effective management of medical devices which are especially used in health care facilities.
▪Additionally, clinical engineering department increases life cycle of medical devices, optimizes spare parts and technical services’ costs of medical devices in order to improve the quality of health care.
⚫ Definition of Clinical Engineers
"A Clinical Engineer is a professional who supports and advances patient care by applying engineering and managerial skills to healthcare technology." -ACCE Definition, 1992
As clinical medicine has become increasingly dependent on more sophisticated technologies and the complex equipment associated with it, the Clinical Engineer, as the name implies, has become the bridge between modern medicine and equally modern engineering.
⚫ Roles and responsibilites of a Clinical Engineer
▪ Clinical engineering is an interdisciplinary field practiced in a variety of settings and presenting a diversity of challenges. The Clinical Engineer is, by education and training, a problem solver, working with complex human and technological systems. In the hospital, shared service, and asset management firm, the Clinical Engineer often functions as the technology manager for medical equipment systems.
▪The responsibilities in this setting include financial or budgetary management, service contract management, data processing systems for managing the medical equipment, and coordination of service agreements and in-house operations. The hospital-based clinical engineer may also have responsibility for supervision of the in-house maintenance staff, depending on his or her skill set and the structure of the department.
Hospital-based clinical engineers also fill other important functions in assuring that the medical equipment is safe and effective. These functions include participation in the planning process and in the assessment of new technology, assuring regulatory compliance in the medical technology management area, investigation of incidents, and active participation in training and education of technical and medical personnel.
⚫ Summary of Role and Responsibilities
▶ Determining medical Devices which Hospitals needs
▶ Prepare Technical Specifications of Medical Devices, Accessories, Spare Parts
▶ Accepting Device after purchasing, Controlling Technical Specifications of Devices
▶ Maintenance and Repair Management
▶ Management of Inventory and Stocks
▶ Performance Analysis of Medical Devices
▶ Management of Medical Device Inventory
▶ Planning and Management of Calibration Periods medical Devices
▶ To Educator about personal about Medical Devices usage (Doctor, Nurse, etc.)
Clinical Engineers and BMETS are Different
▪Clinical Engineers are often confused with another professional group in the hospital, the Biomedical Equipment Technicians (BMETs). In reality, these two groups perform different but equally valuable functions.
▪The BMET is the person responsible for direct support, service, and repair of the medical equipment in the hospital. BMET education and training is usually of a more directly technical nature, and is supplemented with specific schooling in service to the equipment. BMETs answer the call when medical equipment fails to function properly and must work closely with nurses and other hospital staff, as well as the equipment vendor, as they service and maintain the equipment. The job of the clinical engineer, however, is somewhat different.
Source: Internet
