TMC Corner

Abstract

It's a Friday morning in October, and Dave Francoeur and Ken Maddock are walking down the hallway at Baylor Health Care System in Texas—nothing unusual for two veteran biomeds.But this isn't any ordinary day. Francoeur and Maddock—two leaders of AAMI's Technology Management Council (TMC)—are “on location” being followed by a camera crew filming a new five-minute video to promote the biomed field as a career option.The video, which is being developed by the TMC and produced by CTI Productions, features Maddock and Francoeur speaking about what a career in biomed entails and how to get involved. It will be available on AAMI's new student website, www.aami.org/student.Francoeur, vice chair of the TMC, says the video is a great “way to potentially reach lots of individuals who might not ever have the opportunity to hear about our great profession.”In particular, the video may have special appeal to high school students, who lack an awareness of the biomed profession. “The video targets students who are voracious consumers of web-based and social networking tools,” says Maddock, vice president of clinical engineering and telecommunication services at Baylor. “Making a video available to students in a comfortable way will increase awareness of the field.”The video may also help sway parents, who “are often led to believe that sending their child to a community college to get a two-year degree in a field such as biomedical equipment technician (BMET) is not good enough, and that only a four-year education has value,” says Lynda Wilkinson, program coordinator of electronics engineering technologies for North Seattle Community College. “A good video showing the level of training and the career opportunities will be wonderful.”Two new resources are now available to provide additional guidance to AAMI members on information technology (IT) integration issues.The first is a questionnaire that provides guidance to hospitals on integration issues; and the second is a comprehensive document listing IT standards and guidance documents. Both resources are available to all AAMI members through the CE-IT Community at www.ceitcollaboration.org.The questionnaire—called the Medical Device Integration Matrix—contains dozens of specific questions that healthcare facilities could consider asking vendors with respect to medical device integration.The matrix is divided into 10 sections including topic areas such as vendor information; a decision chart; and issues affecting security, network, hardware, software and interface, human factors, service support, training, and documentation.Within the matrix, each section includes a number of specific questions that a healthcare facility could ask a vendor. For example, in the system support category, questions pertain to whether the vendor provides loaner equipment, the type of onsite and remote support that is offered, and the onsite response time provided.The matrix—which was developed by the CE-IT Community's Integration Working Group—serves as a reminder to hospitals to ask questions about certain components in a system, says Linda Chan, information services manager for New Jersey-based Virtua Health Information Services, and a member of the Integration Working Group.“Each hospital will have its own standards on what the answer should be,” Chan says. Vendors also can use an accompanying decision tree to submit responses to the questions.The second new resource developed by the CE-IT Community is a 26-page document that provides a comprehensive listing of applicable IT references, resources, and standards.The document—titled “Medical Device Integration: Reference, Resources, and Standards”—includes seven chapters listing general IT references, key interoperability organizations, reference documents, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) documents, FDA recognized standards, informative standards, and relevant journals.The document—which is intended for clinical engineers, system integrators, and IT professionals—provides a glimpse into an engineer's point of view, says Rick Schrenker, systems engineering manager for Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and a member of the Requirements Working Group which developed the document.The resource can help in the development of requirements for systems and vendors. “We couldn't write requirements because they are often organization specific,” Schrenker says. “Those of us who were familiar with doing requirements came up with the idea of providing people with references that would help them develop requirements for say high-intensity systems.”The document is intended to be a living document, which will be updated periodically as standards and resources are developed or revised.Both resources were developed by the CE-IT Community—a collaboration among members of AAMI, the American College of Clinical Engineering (ACCE), and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS). The CE-IT Community was created in 2008 to develop resources, best practices, and network opportunities to advance CE-IT interests. For more information, visit www.ceitcollaboration.org.