The News Room

In the next few years, the Technology Management Council (TMC) of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) will “bring home the benchmarking and clinical engineering/information technology initiatives in meaningful and exciting ways.”

So predicts Carol Davis-Smith, the newly appointed TMC Chair and a medical technology consultant with Premier, Inc. “These issues have been sources of frustration and challenge for our profession for many years. But within the next two years, I expect us to be managing the issues rather than them managing us.”

Davis-Smith assumed the role of TMC Chair at AAMI’s Annual Conference in San Jose this year. Reflecting on the group’s history and future, she says, “we've accomplished a lot over the past four years, and we have so much more ahead of us.”

Projects include the development of a new online benchmarking tool that will help clinical engineering departments assess their performance, policies, and procedures against others in the field and a collaborative effort with two other national organizations to develop guidance documents and best practices for clinical engineering/information technology (CE-IT) integration.

“The benchmarking initiative is a very real opportunity to establish, reinforce, and/or enhance the relationship between technology managers and hospital leadership,” says Davis-Smith.

She is joined on the TMC’s Executive Committee by Dave Francoeur, CBET, the TMC’s new vice-chair, and new at-large Executive Committee appointee Steve Yelton. Don Trombatore and Ken Maddock remain as at-large members of the Executive Committee, as will Ray Laxton — who served for the last 4 years as TMC chair.

Francoeur, vice president with ARAMARK Healthcare, is particularly enthused about the TMC’s efforts to promote the biomed profession as a career option to young people. “I’d like to see us get even more involved with providing career resources and reaching out to high schools and colleges to let them know about our field.”

Yelton agrees. “These efforts have been extremely successful and important. The brochure that was developed to promote the field has been well-received, and is nearing its second edition. And the annual National Biomedical/Clinical Engineering Appreciation Week observance has begun taking hold across the country,” says Yelton, who is chairman of the electrical engineering technologies department at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College in Cincinnati, OH.

In the months and years ahead, “I hope to see even greater collaboration with our clinician colleagues, through both additional issues of Healthcare Technology Horizons and presentations at national medical-nursing conferences,” says Davis-Smith. “I’d also like for us to find ways to better integrate clinicians into the local biomed societies. Education in both directions is and will be the cornerstone of this relationship.

And without a doubt, we cannot forget our industry partners. They have been supportive and are integral to so many AAMI programs that we must find ways to leverage their expertise within current and future TMC initiatives. There are still remnants of the ‘us vs. them’ philosophy, rather than a collaborative relationship that recognizes both parties are necessary if either is to survive.”

Francoeur notes that TMC members help to strengthen the voice of  medical technology managers around the world. “If members of the field have concerns or issues they want to bring up, I hope they’ll come to us,” he notes. “That’s what the TMC is all about—promoting the interests of technology managers.”

Over the last four years, the TMC has produced several important magazines about IT and nursing-biomed issues, promoted best practices, developed new online resources, and created a number of other important career-related benefits.

Davis-Smith says the TMC’s success couldn’t have occurred without the steady leadership of Laxton, who led the group from the very beginning.

For more information about the TMC’s benchmarking project and other TMC initiatives, visit www.aami.org/tmc.