GE Healthcare debuts its College of Health Technology Management

The program, which will train between 22 and 25 participants at a time, is only open to GE employees, but communications lead Laura Fait anticipates that it will expand to GE Healthcare customers in 2020. And training at the college has already begun, with a few technicians who started in May, said senior director of HTM for GE Healthcare Donna Dyer.

“This gives us the opportunity to not only do the technical training, not only the book knowledge, not only that hands-on equipment fixing — but situational learning where we can add some real-world elements to the material that we do,” she said.

The cost of the program has not yet been determined, said Dyer.

The College of Health Technology Management includes classrooms that replicate a real hospital setting, including an operating room, emergency room and neonatal intensive care unit. The facilities are meant to help those training understand what it’s like to operate in a hospital, where there are additional rules and procedures that HTM professionals have to follow, said Dyer.

The college also provides training in equipment tracking technology, which allows hospitals to maintain an accurate, constant inventory about the location of the hospital’s different pieces of equipment.

The facility is designed to bridge the gap between a growing need for HTM professionals and growing retirements in the profession with a lack of college programs offering training in health technology management . GE Healthcare’s program is not looking to replace university or collegiate programs, said Dyer. Rather, the program will provide technical training within GE’s walls.

Located at the 250,000-square-foot GE Healthcare Institute in Waukesha, the college will create individualized training programs for GE employees based on their skill level. The program was built upon market feedback and will continue to adapt to the HTM industry and feedback from participants, Dyer said.