HTM Field Loses Pioneer
Les Atles, a well-known figure in the healthcare technology management (HTM) community for more than 30 years, passed away Feb. 20 after complications from a long illness. He was 59.
Atles, who was remembered as a “consummate people person,” had a long history in the HTM field, serving as director of biomedical engineering at St. Vincent Medical Center, Los Angeles; national biomedical advisor for Marquette Medical Systems; director of technology management at Masterplan; and most recently as chief biomedical engineer at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.
He also was a founding member of the California Medical Instrumentation Association (CMIA), serving in many roles in the organization, including past president. The successful setup of CMIA provided a model for other state biomedical organizations. Atles eventually shared his knowledge and ideas about setting up these associations in the original 1994 version of AAMI’s guide How to Establish and Maintain a Local Biomedical Organization.
Atles garnered many awards during his distinguished career, including the CMIA Professional of the Year Award in 2009 and the America College of Clinical Engineering Marv Shepherd Patient Safety Award in 2010.
What Atles perhaps will be best remembered for are his guides for younger members of the HTM profession. He created and edited the 2008 book, A Practicum for Biomedical Engineering and Management Issues, a biomedical engineering resource consisting of 55 chapters of practical information written by 30 experts in the field. He also co-authored Affinity: Reference Guide for Biomedical Technicians. Malcolm Ridgway, chief clinical engineer at ARAMARK Healthcare Technologies and a friend of Atles for about 40 years, called the reference guide a fixture on the shelves of working biomeds. The guide has proven so popular, biomeds would instantly recognize Atles’s name at conferences and seek him out, recalled Ridgway.
Ridgway also noted that Atles was a great team player and dedicated to guiding the next generation of healthcare technology professionals. “He was a natural at winning the hearts and minds of his colleagues,” explained Ridgway, who called him a “consummate people person” who reminded his associates that they were dealing with people and not machines; therefore, customer service was of the upmost importance.
Atles is survived by his wife Linda, his son Marcus, his granddaughter Nisa Marie, and two brothers.
Posted: February 27, 2013