Rapid change ahead for EBME

 Among the challenges will be to provide medical device management across healthcare boundaries, as the Government presses ahead with its strategy for integrated care, supported by remote monitoring technologies. LOUISE FRAMPTON reports.

The electro-biomedical engineering (EBME) sector faces significant challenges ahead in delivering effective medical device management within a changing healthcare landscape – in which hospitals are coming under pressure from increased demand and rising expectations, coupled with financial constraints. At the same time, biomedical engineers will need to get to grips with changes in the way care is going to be delivered, as the Government promotes a move towards the provision of ‘integrated care’. These are some of the issues recently addressed by expert speakers at the EBME Innovations Seminar. “This is a period of rapid change for the biomed sector,” commented Professor Nick Bosanquet, professor of health policy, Imperial College, and consultant director for the think tank Reform. “In the past, the perception of biomedical engineers has been one of ‘fitters with oily rags’ – they have been hidden away at the end of long corridors like rabbits in warrens. “They related to machines rather than the people in the organisations, around them. As long as the equipment was alright they felt they had done their job. But now the biomed sector is becoming a communication business, in which the customers are the healthcare professionals and even patients.” He added that biomedical diagnostics used to be “a very secret world, with high priests in white coats”. However, today, there are a vast number of appliances being used within the healthcare system, leading to information overload. He warned that there is a rising risk of misuse of technology and misinterpretation of information, as well as potential benefits. Furthermore, this journey for biomedical engineers is taking place within a changing healthcare environment.

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