The Technology Management Council

First Meeting Scheduled in June . . .
Technology Council Named, Outreach Efforts Launched

More than 20 AAMI members have been selected to serve on the Technology Management Council, a new AAMI committee designed to better serve the interests of biomedical equipment technicians, clinical engineers, and others who provide management and support services related to medical technology.

A five-member Executive Committee has also been named to begin organizing the Council’s efforts and first meeting, which will be held during AAMI’s Annual Conference & Expo on Saturday, June 5, in Boston.

“This Council is an important mechanism for AAMI to get a new perspective on the needs of technology managers and provide a means for addressing those needs,” said Council member, Steve Yelton, PE, chairman of Cincinnati State Technical and Community College’s biomedical equipment and information systems technology program.

The Council, formed by the AAMI Board of Directors, is an outgrowth of efforts started last year by a special BMET Task Force, which examined current and potential ways that technology managers could best interact with AAMI, other members, and the health care community in general. The Task Force recommended the formation of the new Council and Executive Committee to provide a more focused voice for technology managers.

The five members who will serve on the Executive Committee are:

• Ray Laxton, Director of Clinical Engineering, Clarian Health
  Partners/ARAMARK Clinical Technology Services, as chair
• Carol Davis-Smith, CCE, Capital Lifecycle Solutions, Premier, as vice chair
• David Francoeur, CBET, Executive Director of Service Operations, TriMedx
• Rich Ogg, CBET, Lecturer, Trainer and Biomedical Consulting, Tulsa
  Area Biomedical Association,
• Donald Trombatore, Director, New Business Development, Sound Imaging.

In addition, 16 other medical technology professionals from across the country have been named to serve a three-year term on the Council, which is expected to explore pragmatic issues such as increasing visibility and recognition of technology managers and increasing educational efforts.

“Just the term ‘technology management’ shows that there’s more to service than maintenance and repair,” said Council member Jeff Kabachinski, MCNE, MS-T, manager of GE Healthcare’s Multivendor Services Technical Training.

Kabachinski hopes that the council will help better define some gray areas for technology managers. “It allows us the luxury of accumulating best practices and building expert panels as we try to clarify and define any new roles in health care,” he said.

The Council is expected to help advance the medical technology field, much like the efforts of the BMET Task Force, whose members helped publish AAMI’s special information technology publication, IT Horizons, and helped develop AAMI’s Employment Survey published in the Nov/Dec 2003 issue of Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology.

“The Council is very important and should try to make AAMI more accessible to the rank and file BMET,” added Paul Kelley, CBET, assistant director of engineering at Washington Hospital in Freemont, CA. “We should also provide training and networking resources for BMETs and not just the managers. We need to help develop these folks into the managers of tomorrow.”

Another Council member—Louis Katchis, Jr., CCE, biomedical manager at Baptist Health South Miami Hospital—hopes the Council will seek to “promote technology assessment in a facility, just as a leading role in the assessment of new equipment or technologies begins in a hospital or system.”

“Technology assessment could be further utilized to help the health care community select new technologies that will advance health care and reduce operating costs,” said Katchis.

Yelton envisions the Council increasing educational efforts to technology managers. “The most critical issues facing technology managers involve resources. I feel that they need to figure out how to do more with less,” said Yelton, who brings a different perspective to the committee as an educator.

For comments or suggestions, e-mail scampbell@aami.org.

Reprinted from AAMI News: Vol. 39, No. 4, April 2004

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