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AAMI Update: Australian Clinical Engineering Department Wins HTM Week Celebration Contest

Australian Clinical Engineering Department Wins HTM Week Celebration Contest

Tue Jul 17 2018By TechNation Magazine

The Clinical Engineering Department at The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH) in Victoria, Australia has been named the winner of this year’s best celebration contest for Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) Week for its unique, educational and fun combination of events.

Although there were a number of dynamic submissions for the contest, the events at RMH really stood out to AAMI’s Vice President of HTM Danielle McGeary. “I just kept thinking, ‘I wish I was there!’ when I was reading their submission,” McGeary said.

HTM Week, which took place May 20-26, is designed to promote awareness of, and appreciation for, the critical work of biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs), biomedical engineers (BMEs), clinical engineers and other HTM professionals – something that often goes unacknowledged, even by those working in the field.

“It is easy to fall into the routine that there is not enough time to celebrate the work of BMEs and BMETs with competing priorities from our healthcare technology management efforts,” said Simon Cowley, acting manager of RMH’s Clinical Engineering Department. “I have wanted to run events for HTM Week for a number of years. This year, a prior conference presentation and a great idea for a pump challenge from one of our BMEs aligned well with HTM Week.”

Cowley’s presentation, which he originally gave at the Society for Medical & Biological Engineering (NSW) Conference in March, focused on common medical device vulnerabilities and effective cybersecurity controls. The event attracted about 40 attendees, including HTM and IT professionals from multiple hospitals and government officials.

“Although I have run my medical device cybersecurity presentation multiple times, I was most pleased by the turnout and wide interest of the HTM Week medical device cybersecurity presentation,” Cowley said. “It is good to see that along with my team and IT colleagues at RMH, I am on the right path with highlighting the risk of cybersecurity for medical devices.”

RMH’s second event, the brainchild of Clinical Engineering Supervisor Emma Strachan, pitted three HTM professionals against each other to see who could rebuild an Asena PK syringe pump first. (All the pumps used in the competition had been decommissioned and were awaiting disposal – they were not returned to clinical use.)

Marina Alfons, an RMH biomedical engineer, was declared the winner with a time of one hour and two minutes. Although the other competitors assembled their pumps faster, Alfons was the only one to successfully power up and start an infusion with a 50 mL syringe, according to Cowley.

Technology Management Council Adds New Members

Three healthcare technology management (HTM) leaders joined AAMI’s Technology Management Council (TMC), a group responsible for representing all professionals and disciplines that purchase, service and maintain healthcare technology, including BMETs, clinical engineers, quality assurance professionals and others.

The TMC works to create opportunities and resources for HTM professionals as well as elevate and advance the profession. The newest members of the TMC are:

Barbara L. Christe, program director of healthcare engineering technology management and an associate professor with the engineering technology department at the Purdue School of Engineering & Technology at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis.

Janice Courtois, a BMET III at Allina Health in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Bhaskar Iduri, director of clinical engineering and quality assurance at Renovo Solutions in Irvine, California.

Their terms began following the meeting of the TMC at the AAMI 2018 Conference & Expo, in Long Beach, California, in June.

For more information about the TMC, visit www.aami.org/TMC.

AAMI Publications Win ASHPE, EXCEL Awards

AAMI’s peer-reviewed journal, BI&T, and its twice-yearly supplement, Horizons, won gold awards from the American Society of Healthcare Publication Editors (ASHPE) in a national competition that recognizes “editorial excellence and achievement in the field of health care publishing.”

The cover story for the January/February 2017 issue of BI&T, “The Danger Within: Confronting the Challenge of Healthcare-Associated Infections,” written by AAMI Director of Communications Amber Logan, received ASHPE’s gold award for Best Single News Article. The fall 2017, cybersecurity-focused issue of Horizons, edited by Senior Editor Gavin Stern, received a gold award for Best Special Supplement.

Two AAMI publications also advanced to the finalist round for the EXCEL Awards, a competition sponsored by the Association of Media and Publishing that recognizes excellence and leadership in nonprofit association media, publishing, marketing and communications. These were Logan’s BI&T cover story and an AAMIBlog post authored by Larry Fennigkoh, professor of biomedical engineering at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, that focused on why HTM professionals need to turn their data into knowledge.


Learn more about AAMI here.

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