The News Room

A new listserve has been created by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) to provide benchmarking guidance to subscribers of AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution (ABS).
AAMI’s new Benchmarking Discussion Group will enable subscribers of AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution to share advice, ask benchmarking questions, and obtain guidance from leading benchmarking experts in the field.

AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution, which was released earlier this year, is a web-based tool designed specifically to help clinical engineering departments measure their policies, procedures, and practices against similar departments at other facilities; monitor progress throughout the year, and share best practices. (For more information, visit www.aami.org/abs.)

Already, more than 110 hospitals from across the country and abroad have subscribed to AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution, and this new discussion group is available only to current benchmarking subscribers.

Subject matter experts who created the benchmarking resource will help moderate the discussion group and provide regular guidance to subscribers.  “We’ll be able to answer questions and help subscribers maximize the usefulness of all the vivid graphs and charts contained in the tool,” says Frank Painter, MS, CCE, clinical engineering program director for the School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Connecticut, and one of the subject matter experts.

The new discussion group will also enable subscribers to provide advice on what changes and enhancements they would like to see made to the benchmarking tool in the future. “As people work together, I imagine they will start to build consensus about what are the best features and how can we make the most out of the tool,” adds Matt Baretich, CCE, PhD, president of Baretich Engineering Inc, another subject matter expert.

Painter hopes that the listserve will evolve into a communication tool for clinical engineering leaders. “The subscribers have their eyes open, and are looking for ways to do better. We may be able to open a corridor of communication between managers that previously didn’t exist.”

The Benchmarking Discussion Group is the six listserves that AAMI offers. They include the QS Connect Discussion Group, Joint Commission Discussion Group, and three other listserves focusing on biomed-related topics, issues facing educators, and a third for leaders of biomedical societies.

If you already subscribe to AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution, you are already a member of the discussion group. To login and send messages to the discussion group, visit www.aami.org, click member login in the left column, and then click “e-forums” in the left column to access the benchmarking discussion group.

If you are interested in subscribing to AAMI’s Benchmarking Solution, visit www.aami.org/abs.