New Book Full of ‘Bright Ideas’ for Biomeds

How’s this for a bright idea? Compile a handy book of successful workplace practices and strategies at hospitals and other healthcare facilities, so that more healthcare technology management professionals can adopt and adapt them.

That’s the thinking behind Bright Ideas, a new publication from AAMI that provides tips and techniques from 31 “Best Practices” articles that have been published in Biomedical Instrumentation& Technology (BI&T), AAMI’s peer-reviewed journal, over the past five years. The book includes practical tips on how to make these ideas work for your facility.

There is, for example, the biomed department at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas, TX, which put a new spin on the old adage, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

The department, which was concerned it was misunderstood by the rest of the hospital, held monthly free lunches for representatives from other hospital departments. The only “catch” was that the representatives learned more about the biomed department.

The department’s initiative was the subject of the “Best Practices” feature in the November/December 2009 edition of BI&T. Ron Greenwalt, biomedical manager for Children’s, said at that time.

“Since the Best Practices feature premiered, we’ve aimed to talk to the best in the healthcare technology management community about projects they’ve undertaken to improve patient safety, cut costs, strengthen their staff, and make their departments run more smoothly,” says Jill Williams, AAMI senior writer and the author of the articles, which provide tips on:

• How to enhance collaboration between clinical engineering and information technology
• How to create a technology review committee to help plan construction projects
• How human factors can help strengthen technology management
• How to revamp the new employee orientation process

Williams says she hopes that “biomeds will borrow liberally from the bright ideas to improve their own departments."

AAMI News: August 2011, Vol. 46, No. 8

Visit AAMI for more info and to order a copy!