AAMI Feature: CEs should interject themselves into leadership roles

SAN ANTONIO—“Clinical engineers often get too bogged down in the break/fix activities on a daily basis. If this consumes the life of the CE, then there will not be an opportunity to grow. We need to take control of what our profession will become 10 to 15 years down the line because it’s already in a state of evolution,” said Alan Gresch, who made a presentation at the 2011 Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation annual meeting on June 25.

Ideally, CEs should be partners with clinicians in the delivery of healthcare. “To accomplish this goal, we need to get ourselves in front of the nursing leadership to understand how they can be better supported,” said Gresch, assistant vice president of capital equipment services at Alexian Brothers Health System, based in Arlington Heights, Ill.

In addition to the clinical side, CEs need to “get ahead of the curve” in the push to make devices more interoperable, he said. “We need to help our organizations prepare and plan for increased interoperability.

“Any area where technology can be utilized to improve processes and efficiencies, while simultaneously reducing costs, needs to be an integral role of the CE, even if this wasn’t their traditional role in the past,” Gresch noted.

Establishing a leadership role at any provider setting may first start with embracing the mission or value statement of the hospital, and aligning the clinical engineering department’s priorities with that of the C-suite.

“Clinical engineers can directly impact the business management focus of the C-suite level, but it is up to us to open up those lines of communications, in order to understand their challenges and see where we can be of better use,” Gresch explained. “This may require us to step outside of our comfort zone.”

The evolving and burgeoning position of the chief technology officer (CTO) within various provider settings may be the suitable niche for a CE to step into a leadership role.

“Every organization has a CIO, and given the convergence and the greater integration of medical devices, it’s becoming clear that IT and the CE departments need to work together for the greatest possible benefits for our patients and our organizations,” Gresch said in an interview. “The collaboration will have to take place one way or another, and therefore, in the very near future, there will be an increasing need for a CTO, along with a CIO.”

He added that hospital administrations will recognize this need because they will need to make particular individuals responsible for the all the varied technologies, especially with the growing need for improved interoperability.