The caregivers and staff in your health system depend on highly sophisticated medical equipment and software technology to help them deliver the best patient care possible. Today’s modern healthcare systems are increasingly reliant on their clinical engineering teams to ensure that this equipment is functional, reliable, and safe. If your medical facility is considering clinical engineering teams for hire, there are criteria that you should strongly consider to help you find the best possible Healthcare Technology Management (HTM) team.
Clinical Engineer Certification And Training Is A Top Priority
The most important factor when selecting your clinical engineering team is their qualifications. With the high degree of expertise required to select, repair, and maintain today’s advanced medical equipment, you want to be certain that your team members are trained and certified. Holding a clinical engineering certification ensures that the team has met the standards required to perform their duties and that they are knowledgeable about the latest technology and medical equipment.
It is also important that your team members are dedicated to professional development. With the rapid pace of medical technology advancement, a great clinical engineer needs to continue their education – even as they are working in the field. This guarantees that they can keep up with the pace of advancement on emerging technologies and software developments.
Availability And Responsiveness Are Essential Qualities
A strong clinical engineering team will be available when you need them and responsive to your requests for service or repair. Patient care suffers and costs rise for your medical facility when equipment isn’t available. It is crucial to have a clinical engineering team that is available when the need arises – especially in emergency situations.
If your medical equipment is down and your technicians aren’t quick to respond to the service request, you may be forced to rent equipment to perform patient care. If this is a frequent occurrence, equipment rental costs can quickly bloat and overrun your hospital or facilities’ budgets. A great clinical engineering team that is responsive and available to meet your facilities’ needs will save you money while ensuring timely patient care.
Excellent Communication Is Key For Effective HTM
Hand in hand with availability and responsiveness is communication. The daily operations of healthcare technology management are diverse and highly technical. You need a team that can communicate effectively and explain technical issues in a way that other hospital or facility staff can easily comprehend.
Great communicators are also great listeners. Your clinical engineers should take the time to listen and hear the concerns related to them. Then, they should provide clear and actionable responses.
Clinical Engineering Teams Must Have Impeccable Organization Skills
Clinical engineering teams must demonstrate exceptional organizational skills. The complex system of sourcing and procuring the necessary equipment, organizing repairs, minimizing downtime, and managing software updates requires an extremely high level of organization.
It also requires a reliable process for tracking every piece of equipment within a medical system, keeping up with recalls and governmental compliance, and capital planning to budget for replacing outdated equipment or devices.
The best clinical engineering teams will use a sophisticated cloud-based computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) that provides reliable, real-time status information for every medical device or piece of equipment within the facility or health system.
Find A Clinical Engineering Team That Is Proactive
To avoid the high costs and inconveniences of medical equipment downtime, you want to find a team that prioritizes proactive measures. A data-driven, proactive approach to HTM can prevent equipment downtime and guarantee timely patient care.
Proactive measures also support effective capital planning with advanced preparation to replace equipment at the end of its lifespan and knowing which equipment is costing more to retain than it would cost to replace.
The Case For In-House Clinical Engineering Teams
To maximize the positive outcomes that a clinical engineering team can have on your medical facility, clinical equipment, patient care, and budgets, hiring an in-house team is the best decision. When your clinical engineering team is based in-house, they have their finger directly on the pulse of your medical facility and they can better support everyday operations related to HTM.
An in-house team also means immediate availability and faster response times for service and repair requests. This will keep your equipment running with less downtime, allow the team to be more proactive with equipment needs, and will allow you to maintain a more stable and predictable budget.
If you’re looking for a great clinical engineering team that meets all of these criteria, has a full range of flexibility, and is driven to deliver the very best in healthcare technology management, contact us today to start building a customized program to “fit” your medical system!
Ned has spent over 25 years in the clinical engineering field. Trained by USAF and finished the last decade of service with oversight of $150M in revenue and 150+ team members. Started his professional non-military career at Kinetic Biomedical, who was eventually sold to Crothall HTS. Ned served as a CT engineer and regional manager and worked his way through his decades of service to a RVP of one of the largest ISOs in the country.