Dinosaurs of the 21^st Century?

Patrick K. Lynch, CCE, CBET, MBA

This year AAMI is celebrating its 40^th anniversary.  The ‘Biomed’ profession is even older.  Most of us are younger (in the profession, anyway).  There are many questions about the future of our profession and what role Biomed will play in it. But the most important question  we should all be asking ourselves is, “Am I extinct?”

We who currently practice the very noble art of Biomed stand on the shoulders of some great pioneers – Dodson, Fennigkoh, Keil, and Kauffman, to name a few.  But even more important, we benefit from the many thousands of accomplishments and the everyday hard work of the average BMET and clinical engineer (referred to as “Biomeds”).  And let me state for the record that there is nothing average about the average Biomed.  As a whole, Biomeds are the most hardworking, honest and dependable group of people I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with.  I am solidly proud to count myself among your numbers.

 The real benefactors of our work and careers are the patients – the sons, daughters, mothers, fathers and grandparents of us all.  They are able to enter hospitals with certainty that medical equipment used in for their care and treatment will be safe and reliable. Those of us in the clinical engineering field all work daily to reduce or eliminate the technical problems with electrically powered medical devices.  But the challenges for us have changed.  No longer is electrical safety the major concern – almost half of all medical equipment requires no ongoing maintenance after the incoming inspection.  And devices with no moving parts require very little repair or calibration.  They are getting more reliable all the time.

 So what will we spend our time doing in the future?  The many thousands of small, stand-alone medical devices (like thermometers and defibrillators) won’t be stand-alone for long.  Everything will talk to everything else.  The problems we will face will be dominated by interface issues – the interface between the nurse and the medical device, the medical device and the patient, the medical device and the network.  We are all pretty good at diagnosing and correcting nurse-device issues, and device-patient issues, but how many traditional Biomeds feel really comfortable with networked devices?  How many of us have responded to nursing units to make sure there isn’t an “operator error”, and then placed a call to the correct person who can fix it – either the manufacturer, the IT department or somebody else?  Are we content to sit at our desks and swap circuit boards, or pick up the phone to call an expert?  Do we have the confidence to jump into the thick of the most complex devices, or do we take the easy path and fix simple devices and defer to the manufacturers when it is challenging?

 I attribute my personal success in the Biomed field to my willingness to tackle the difficult.  Before the 1970’s, medical devices were few and far between, were largely mechanical and operated on vacuum tubes.  In the 70’s, transistors, ICs and microprocessors hit the scene.  The Biomeds who didn’t succeed were the ones who wouldn’t or couldn’t learn the new technology.  Instead they became good at justifying why it was in the hospital’s best interest to contract with the manufacturers.  I was just cocky enough to believe that I was as smart and talented as anybody else, and it became a demonstration of personal pride for me to fix anything that I was challenged with.  I took it as a personal failure if I had to call in somebody else because I could not resolve the problem.

 So, knowing what we know about the evolution of medical equipment, think about how you would answer the following questions:  When was the last time you learned anything new? (Not just a variation of an old theme, but something REALLY new!)  Do you have pride in your job and your abilities?  Do you believe your skills are second rate and there are many devices in your facility that you cannot tackle?  Does this extend to computer networks? Are you staying current with new technology?  What percentage of the medical devices in your hospital can you fix from beginning to end?  How many service contracts do you manage?  Worse yet, how many service contracts do you not manage? What is your ratio of outsourced costs to in-house costs?  Have you figured out how to add value to the Laboratory and Radiology?  Are you called when a CT or MRI develops problems?  Have you looked to non-traditional means of serving the patient and your employer?  Do you know how robotic surgery works?  Are you the first they call when it doesn’t work?

 If you answered ‘no’ to many of the above questions, or if you have many outside contracts in place, you may very well be the dinosaur of the 21^st Century.  And it is quite possible your job as you know it will be extinct in a few short years.  You cannot expect to remain a vital part of your employer’s business if you refuse to expand your knowledge, skills and abilities.  The future is in your hands. Where you end up will be based upon how successful you are at staying current with new technology. And the truth is, if you are not interested in being a part of the future, you will be perceived as a part of the past.