With the rapid growth of medical technology,most developed countries (e.g.,America,Canada,Japan,Germany) and so many others have been producing clinical engineering professional for hospitals with a vision to ensure the safe and cost effective health care management in their countries for the past 30 years.They have upheld the standard health care technology management system by employing educated and skilled clinical engineers within their health care organizations.As a result,they have successfully established clinical engineering department in each level of hospitals operation and thus have ensured that a standard,safe and cost effective management of their health care assets.Since 1990s,developing countries such as Malaysia,India,South Africa,Jordan and so many others have understood the necessity of skilled clinical engineers for the safe and cost effective health care management.They too have introduced clinical engineering professionalism in their health care management system and thus have improved significantly the health care system in their respective countries.It is unfortunate that other developing and underdeveloped countries such as Bangladesh,Nepal,Bhutan,Myanmar,Indonesia and so forth could not understand the necessity of skilled clinical engineers for the improvement of health care system.This may be due to the lack of awareness and/or less attention is given to the management of healthcare technology.As the result,the health care delivery in these countries could not reach a standard acceptable level.The authors believe the current condition of the health services in these countries need to be enhanced by the introduction of clinical engineering professionals in their healthcare systems.We have identified the shortfall in healthcare technology management due to the absence of skilled clinical engineers and biomedical engineering scientists in developing countries as a National Health Service problem.Considering the reality of present health care management in developing countries such as in Bangladesh,we are proposing a novel module to produce the skilled clinical engineers to improve the existing inferior health care services in Bangladesh.Our novel proposed module will be helpful to understand the need of skilled clinical engineers in hospitals for the improvement of health care services.It can be used to understand the performance difference of skilled clinical engineers and conventionally trained electrical and mechanical engineers.This study will also explore the benefit of having skilled clinical engineers and hence assist the health care management policy makers and health service managers to introduce this important technical professional in the health services.Our hope is that a safe and cost effective health care management system will be established in the developing countries such as Bangladesh which is presently lacking.In many countries,the health care technology management system seems to be very problematic.Continually,it has been observed that the health care technology management performance could not cope with the introduction and increase of sophisticated medical devices.The authors seriously believe that excellent benefit could be obtained by the introduction of skilled clinical engineers in the health services of developing countries such as in Bangladesh through their excellent practice for a safe and cost effective health care management.
clinical engineer health care technology medical devices & medical equipment conventional trained engineer
Anwar Hossain Mohiuddin Ahmad Rezanur Rahman Muklesur Rahman Shafiqul.Islam Azman Hamid Abdur.Rashid Hafizur Rahman Chowdhury Bashudev Ganguly Rafiqul Islam
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering & Technology(KUET), Khulna-92 Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, KUET, Khulna-9203, Bangladesh National Electro-Medical Equipment Maintenance Workshop & Training Center, Ministry of Health & Fami Ministry of Fishery and Life Stock, Dhaka, Bangladesh phoenix health care BD Ltd, Gulshan-2, Dhaka, Bangladesh Next Level Technologies Sdn Bhd FSTK, Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, 21300, Malaysia Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Dhaka, Bangladesh