Clinical Engineer definition

Introduction Definitions Standards for Clinical Engineering A Hierarchy... 

ICC. 1991. International Certification Commissions Definition of a Clinical Engineer, International Certification Commission Fact Sheet. Arlington, VA, ICC. 

Evaluation of indicators requires the collection, storage, and analysis of data from which the indicators can be derived. A standard set of data elements must be defined. Fortunately, one only has to look at commercially available equipment management systems to determine the most common data elements used. Indeed, most of the high-end software systems have more data elements than many clinical engineering departments are willing to collect. These standard data elements must be carefully defined and understood. This is especially important if the data will later be used for comparisons with other organizations. Different departments often have different definitions for the same data element. It is crucial... 

The clinical engineering department must consistently gather and enter data into the database. The database becomes the practical definition of the services and work performed by the department. This standardized database allows rapid, retrospective analysis of the data to determine specific indicators identifying problems and assist in developing solutions for implementation. A minimum database should allow the gathering and storage of the following data ... 

AAML 1994. Management Information Report MIR 3 Computerized Maintenance Management Systemsfor Clinical Engineering. Arlington, VA, Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. Bauld T.J. 1987. Productivity Standard terminology and definitions. /. Clin. Eng. 12 139. 

The acquisition of equipment is the next major part of effective equipment management. It follows and is indeed part of the equipment planning phase. Flowing from definition of requirements, specifications are developed. Bas on those specifications, a subset of possible equipment is evaluated for conformance to the specifications or standards, and purchase of the most appropriate equipment is initiated. When the equipment arrives at the hospital, the acceptance or incoming inspection of the equipment is a very common function that clinical engineering fulfils. 

Clinical engineering identifies life-support equipment in the AIMS database. The definition of life-support equipment adopted by clinical engineering is medical devices intended to sustain life and whose failure to perform its primary function, when used according to manufacturer s instructions and clinical protocol, is expected to result in imminent death in the absence of immediate intervention. The maintenance of life-support equipment receives the highest priority in the medical equipment management efforts. The inspection schedule compliance goal is 100%. 

David, Yidin, et al. Clinical Engineering. Boca Raton, Fla. CRC Press, 2003. Essays about the discipline of clinical engineering from leading practitioners in the field includes graphics, tables, figures, formulas, definitions of terms, and comprehensive index. 

The industry s medicinal chemists have over the years engineered relatively small structural changes in the basic structural chemical scaffolds, and both the clinical candidates and the backups were often from the same structural class. In order to arrive at fundamentally new scaffolds, there was a strong reliance on natural products. The main 8 to 10 scaffolds discovered in the begirming of the twentieth century are used heavily and represent the key structures of the majority of compounds of historical chemical libraries in all the major pharmaceutical companies. The answer to the question How many chemical entities are there may depend on one s definition, but almost all the chemical entities currently marketed can be traced to these scaffolds. 

Systems engineering is a structured multidisciplinary approach to defining concepts and requirements for complex multifaceted problems that include conception, implementation, and validation. This is an ideal approach to developing solutions to clinical problems because they often involve more than one technical and clinical specialty. A concepts and requirements definition document creates a common interface that allows engineers and... 

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