Certification of Biomedical Engineering Technicians and Clinical Engineers: Important or Not
The clinical engineering staff including engineers and technicians is an important element in the use of medical technology in health care facilities. The clinical engineer is a member of the technology management team, which is involved in the selection
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INTRODUCTION There is a lot said about certification and there are many different certification programs. So one might ask what certification means. Certification is not just a certificate for participating in a training program. At the same time, it is not a license, which is a legal document provided by a professional institution and recognized by a government. A certification is by some professional organization and requires experience, education and usually an exam. When one talks about a certified BMET, what are they really talking about? BMET can mean Biomedical Equipment Technician, Biomedical Electronics Technician, or Biomedical Engineering Technician, and there are degree programs with all these names. With a certification program, it is a Certified Biomedical Equipment Technician. When one talks about Clinical Engineering, this can have different names in the hospital setting. They are generally called Biomedical Engineer or Clinical Engineer. In some cases, they are a Medical Engineer or Medical Physicist, which is the more
common terminology used in Europe. According to the certification program, it is a Certified Clinical Engineer no matter what the degree or experience II. HISTORY – CBET The BMET education program in the U.S. started with the U.S. Army training of Medical Equipment Technicians in World War II. BMET positions did not occur in the medical centers until the late 1960s when medical equipment became prominent in healthcare delivery. Technical Education Research Center (TERC) was given a grant about 1967 by the U.S. government to develop a curriculum for the Biomedical Equipment Technician. As part of their grant, they funded a couple of pilot programs in community colleges. The program was designed to be a two-year associate degree program. After a few years, several associate degree programs were developed in vocational schools around the country. Unfortunately, most of these programs did not follow the curriculum developed by TERC. As a result, the quality of the programs and the type of training that individuals received varied greatly. They were from an electronics program with one course in biomedical instrumentation to programs that had several courses in instrumentation and internships at hospitals. The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) promoted the training of Biomedical Equipment Technicians, as well as, their hiring in hospitals. In order to assure some quality, with a standard set of skills for a Biomedical Equipment Technician, AAMI initiated the certification program for Biomedical Equipment Technicians or the CBET. The Board of Examiners included Lt. Col. Bert Dobson, who was in charge of the Air Force’s medical equipment maintenance program, educators, clinical engineers, and other clinical staff. They developed an exam primarily based on skills required by the U.S. military training program and the curriculum developed by TERC. Over 5000 technicians have been certified under this program, with most of them in the United States. In 1973, the
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