Healthcare Technology Management - Module Assignment, Semester 1

This assignment delves into the multifaceted field of Healthcare Technology Management (HTM). It begins by defining healthcare technology and providing examples like EHRs and telehealth, while differentiating them from non-technological healthcare services. The solution then explores the evolving role of clinical engineers, including their contributions to standards development and post-market surveillance of medical equipment, emphasizing their involvement in innovation and data collection through wearable devices. The assignment addresses safety concerns related to medical devices, focusing on risk assessment and the importance of clinical engineers in mitigating potential hazards. The solution also outlines activities that add value to a clinical engineer's daily practice, such as professional development, effective risk management, and communication with manufacturers. Furthermore, the assignment references innovation and research as key components of HTM, highlighting data management and performance verification. Finally, it examines a case study on the ethics of clinical engineering, emphasizing the importance of acting in the patient's best interest and using effective communication skills to ensure ethical practices.

Running head: HEALTH TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
Health Technology Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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HEALTH TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT
Answer 1
Healthcare Technology is defined as an organized set of knowledge and skills in the
form of the software operated devises and other medicines, vaccines and procedures and the
systems developed in order to solve health problems and to improve the overall quality of life
of the life of the healthcare service users (Hegarty et al. 2017). The five examples of the
healthcare technology that can be easily found under the hospital settings include electronic
health records (EHRs), tele-health or tele-medicine, m-health, computerised physicians order
entry system (CPOE), wearable devises. All these technologies are eminent examples of the
healthcare technology because they all driven by computer software and can be operated
remotely (Vilcahuaman et al., 2017). The five examples of the other healthcare services that
cannot be recruited under the healthcare technology is DSM V (used for the assessment of the
mental state in psychiatric conditions), the use of the hand hygiene equipments used in the
intensive care unit or in the emergency department, the organ transplantation process used in
surgery is also not included under the healthcare. The last example of the healthcare service
that is not included under the healthcare technology is asthmatic control system that is used
by the external oxygen supply under the Fowler’s position (Vilcahuaman et al., 2017).
Answer 2
Clinical engineers are now involved in bringing innovation in the healthcare system
for improving the clinical methods and processes. At present that clinical engineers extend
beyond the health care institution in order to support the process of the bio-medical
engineering. First change in the role is the contribution towards the standards of
development. Before the medical equipment released in the market, the manufacturing
companies are required to ensure that their design meet the standards. Clinical engineers take
part in framing the standards for the medical equipments. The standards set by the clinical

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engineers helps to reduce the risk of care. The second change in the role is clinical engineers
include post market surveillance of the medical equipments. The post market surveillance is
usually done before the product is being comprehensive launched in the healthcare market
(Hegarty et al. 2017). Izmailova, Wagner and Perakslis (2018) stated that the development of
the innovative wearable devices have increased significant interest in the healthcare sectors as
it is regarded as a new means of data collection like heart rate, pulse rate and blood pressure.
The role of the clinical engineers is to facilitate the further evaluation and adoption of these
technologies with the help of conducting clinical trials and role of clinical engineers deal with
estimating the success of these clinical trials. Significant successes in the clinical trial that are
being reported by the clinical engineers promote launching of the final product in the market.
The third change in role of the clinical engineers includes sharing of knowledge between the
clinical engineers and the equipment manufactures in order to improve the overall approach
of the healthcare delivery system. Several well-established clinical engineers pro-actively
partner with the manufacturers of the devices for providing ongoing support to the healthcare
system. Ghobadi (2015) stated that effective communication between the clinical engineers
and the manufacturers promotes the knowledge of sharing under the software development
contexts. For example in order to bring the optimization in the domain of privacy and
confidentiality in the electronic health records, it is the role of the clinical engineers to
discuss the required software modifications with the software manufactures. The discussion
must take place under the execution of the effective communication skills.
Answer 3
Safety can only be considered under a comparative terms. All the medical devices
have a certain degree of risk and the same might cause significant healthcare threats under
special medical circumstances. Numerous medical device problems remain hidden until

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exhaustive market experience is gained. For example implantable medical devices like the
prosthetic bones might fail in a manner in an unpredictable way during the time of
implantation. The current approach for the devise safety is to estimate the potential of a
medical devise towards becoming a hazard that might give rise of safety problems and
associated harms. This estimation of the risk associated with medical devices is known as risk
assessment and the clinical engineers play an important role in the risk assessment (Hegarty
et al. 2017). Olmedo-Gaya et al. (2016) stated that early implant failure is more frequent in
men and among the individuals who have severe peri-dontal diseases. The failure of the short
implants results in the development of pain and severe inflammation along with bone
expansion resulting in poor quality of life of the patient and delay in the recovery. Vervaeke
et al. (2015) stated that a multifactorial analysis of the prosthetic implants must be done in
order to make proper identification of the predictors of the implant failure and the subsequent
peri-implant loss of the bone. The clinical engineers must undertake the duty of the multi-
factorial analysis in order to predict the success of the prosthetic implants under the
healthcare system. Improving the success of the prosthetic implants will help to ensure the
faster recovery of the patients, reduced length of stay at the hospital along with decrease in
the overall time of recovery and reduced cost of care. Thus, I well make the CEO understand
that the development of medical equipment standards is important in order to improve the
overall quality of care and to improve the overall healthcare service quality.
Answer 4
The three activities in my daily practice that adds value to the clinical engineer:
1. Professional development: increase in the professional development will help to improve
the overall quality of practice and this reducing the cost of care. It will also help to improve
the value ratio of personal strength and professional outcome

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2. Performance in the effective risk management of the equipments: This helps to reduce the
chances of failure of the therapy in the healthcare domain and thus helping to improve the
patients’ outcome and decrease in the overall cost of care and both of these add to the overall
ratio in the care process.
3. Effective communication with the manufactures and this helps to bring innovation in
practice and thus helping to improve the process of delivery of care and decrease value (cost)
of overall care and making the care accessible for all. Moreover, the use of the effective
communication skills helps in aiding the decision making process of the clinical engineers in
the domain of the effective risk management in the health care innovation technologies and
thus reducing the risk of the patients in care process and reducing the cost of care.
Answer 5
The figure 1.4 in the Hegarty et al. (2017) highlights innovation and research as one
of the principal activity under the supporting and advancing. Conducting proper innovation in
the research helps improving the safety and the medical equipments and maintenance, while
promoting proper data management and the performance verification. Hegarty et al. (2017)
are of the opinion that bringing the innovation in the research helps in elucidation of the new
aspects of the data management. More research in being undertaken, more data will be
evolved in favour of the positive change in the healthcare system like making modifications
in the risk management and improving the overall process of operation. Fetching more data in
the domain of risk assessment helps in improving the risk management.
The approach of the professional activities under the equipment management will
help to increase the level of knowledge in the regulatory and standards issues. Moreover,
increase in the level of professional knowledge will help in increasing the provision of
teaching and training.

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Case Study CS1.2
Answer 1
The ethics of the clinical engineering deals with the acting in favour of the patient and
causing no harm (beneficence and mon-maleficence). Here the clinical engineer analyze the
problem from core and offered a quick solution while respecting the final responsibility
towards the patient. Thus, the act executed by the clinical engineers in the ICU settings for
adjusting the abnormal flow, pressure and volume waveforms in the ventilation was in
accordance with the code of ethics.
Answer 2
Under the code of ethics of the clinical engineers, it is the the duty of these
professionals to work for the best interest of the patient in order to upheld the ethical duty of
non-maleficence. Thus, when the attending ICU nurses is refusing to admit that there are
signs of the airway blockage and is insisting that there is a fault of the machine while
insisting a change the for the ventilator, the attending clinical engineer must use the effective
communication skill. The use of the effective communication skills will help to make the
nurse understand what the actual fault is and the taking then taking her informed consent the
required change in the care plan must be made depending upon the current health condition
of the patient. Taking help from the senior healthcare professionals (doctors) might also
prove to be beneficial in this case. However, taking the informed decision must be done on
priority as prolong delay in consultation might endangered the life of the patient and thus
hampering the ethics of the beneficence.

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References
Ghobadi, S., 2015. What drives knowledge sharing in software development teams: A
literature review and classification framework. Information & Management, 52(1), pp.82-97.
Hegarty, F., Amoore, J., Blackett, P., McCarthy, J. and Scott, R., 2017. Healthcare
Technology Management–A Systematic Approach. CRC Press.
Izmailova, E.S., Wagner, J.A. and Perakslis, E.D., 2018. Wearable devices in clinical trials:
hype and hypothesis. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 104(1), pp.42-52.
Olmedo-Gaya, M.V., Manzano-Moreno, F.J., Cañaveral-Cavero, E., de Dios Luna-del
Castillo, J. and Vallecillo-Capilla, M., 2016. Risk factors associated with early implant
failure: A 5-year retrospective clinical study. The Journal of prosthetic dentistry, 115(2),
pp.150-155.
Vervaeke, S., Collaert, B., Cosyn, J., Deschepper, E. and De Bruyn, H., 2015. A
multifactorial analysis to identify predictors of implant failure and peri‐implant bone
loss. Clinical implant dentistry and related research, 17, pp.e298-e307.
Vilcahuaman, L., Cordova, M., Kalafatovich, J. and Rivas, R., 2017. A Comprehensive
System for Healthcare Technology Management HTM. In VII Latin American Congress on
Biomedical Engineering CLAIB 2016, Bucaramanga, Santander, Colombia, October 26th-
28th, 2016 (pp. 252-255). Springer, Singapore.
World Health Organizations [WHO]. 2019. Medical Device Regulations Global overview
and guiding principles. Access date: 9th of September 2019. Retrieved from:
https://www.who.int/medical_devices/publications/en/MD_Regulations.pdf