TMC Advances Biomed Interests, Targets New Projects
When members of AAMI’s Technology Management Council (TMC) met for the first time in June 2004, David Francoeur was somewhat skeptical. Would the group, he wondered, be able to meet the unique needs of the healthcare management community?
He wonders no more.
Over the last two years, the TMC has tackled and accomplished numerous major projects. The Council has created several new services for local biomedical societies; increased AAMI members’ access to the Joint Commission (JCAHO); and developed a number of important career and IT-related resources and publications.
“I was always hopeful, but just never really sure that it could be done,” says Francoeur, vice president of service operations with TriMedx Healthcare Equipment Services and a member of the TMC’s Executive Committee. “Now I feel that it was not only done, but done very well, and that we’ve delivered more than was promised.”
This month, on its 2nd anniversary, members of the TMC will gather in Washington, DC at AAMI’s Annual Conference to discuss new benefits and services being developed to better serve the interests of clinical engineers, biomedical equipment technicians, and other technology managers who are members of AAMI.
The TMC, which was created by the AAMI Board in 2004, is composed of 21 biomedical equipment technicians, clinical engineers, and other medical technology managers who volunteer their time on the TMC to represent the interests of their colleagues in the field.
“Our commitment is to represent the interests of all medical technology professionals,” says Ray Laxton, TMC chair, vice president of operations at ARAMARK Healthcare Management Services. “We’ve come along way, but still have a lot to do.”
Like Francoeur and others, Vickie Snyder wasn’t sure what to make of the TMC when she became a member in 2004.
“With so many different opportunities to make a difference, I wasn’t certain what the group would focus on. But it has been really fun seeing what has become of the efforts and how far it has come,” says Snyder, BMET, manager of biomedical engineering at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Minnesota.
Views vary on what projects accomplished by the TMC have been most meaningful to the profession. For example, Steve Yelton — program chair of the engineering technologies and information technologies divisions at Cincinnati State Technical & Community College — sees great value in the TMC’s release this year of a brochure that promotes the biomed field as a career option. More than 5,000 copies of the brochure have already been distributed to schools, recruiters, hospitals, biomedical societies, and others.
In addition, Yelton sees great value in the TMC’s outreach programs to biomedical societies, nursing organizations, and the Joint Commission (JCAHO).
According to Francoeur, one of the most critical steps taken has simply been “opening the door and inviting non-management level clinical engineering professionals to be a part of AAMI and to feel that they are contributing and getting value back.”
The TMC has provided “a wonderful opportunity for healthcare technology professionals to voice their needs to AAMI to assure that relevant services are being offered to the healthcare technology community,” adds Richard Eliason, CBET, senior manager for operations support with ARAMARK Healthcare Management Services and Clinical Technology Services.
As for the future, TMC members seem to unanimously agree that one project in particular offers great potential to the profession: benchmarking, which they say is both critically important and full of challenges.
The project involves the development of benchmarking resources that would enable hospitals and clinical engineering departments to evaluate their performance, procedures, and policies. In the first phase of the work, a consultant would evaluate the feasibility of the benchmarking project, outline the project parameters, identify practices that could or should be benchmarked, and determine measurable indicators for these practices. If the benchmarking project is determined feasible, the consultant would then develop and conduct a benchmarking survey in the second phase.
“If we can pull it off, the benchmarking project will be great,” says Francoeur.
While the project was one of the earliest goals identified by the Council, it has been far from the easiest to accomplish. As Snyder notes, “Since nothing like it has ever been done before, it is taking a little bit longer.” All agree, however, that a benchmarking survey would be a groundbreaking tool.
“To be able to standardize what we do,” says Francoeur, “and to be able to hold the field up to a national standard, would just be huge.” In addition to benchmarking, the TMC will discuss several other potential projects to tackle in the next year during its meeting in Washington in June.
Source: AAMI News, Vol. 41, No. 6, June 2006