AAMI’s Supportability Task Force has released a tool designed to help healthcare delivery organizations (HDOs) work more effectively with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) when considering a medical device for purchase.
The Service-Level Agreement Template helps set mutual expectations for HDOs and OEMs – groups that don’t always see eye-to-eye – to improve their working relationship.
Using the template, HDOs can create a custom contract to specify responsibilities for training, parts availability, service manual access, and more. The template is modular so HDOs can select what they need to craft a contract that is most relevant to them.
“The template is meant to be tailored to your specific needs – you can take the bits and pieces that are applicable to your HDO, department, or device,” said Patrick Bernat, director of healthcare technology management at AAMI.
The free template is available at www.aami.org/SLAT.
AAMI Foundation to Award $80,000 in Research Grants
The AAMI Foundation is accepting applications for a fresh round of grants and will award up to $80,000 to support research and initiatives directed at enhancing the safe adoption and safe use of healthcare technology.
The objective of the Mary K. Logan Research Awards program, named in honor of AAMI’s former president and CEO, is to encourage and fund studies that promote positive patient and healthcare provider outcomes through healthcare technology.
“Making sure that healthcare technology delivers on its promise and does not unintentionally lead to patient harm requires well-designed scientific studies, but finding funding for this type of research is getting harder and harder,” said Marilyn Neder Flack, senior vice president of patient safety initiatives at AAMI and executive director of the AAMI Foundation. “Through the Mary K. Logan Research Awards program, the AAMI Foundation is dedicated to providing the necessary resources to advance the safe use of healthcare technology.”
The Foundation is particularly interested in funding projects that address its main areas of focus: the continuous electronic monitoring of patients on opioids, clinical alarm management, infusion therapy safety in hospitals and nonclinical environments, and the training of clinicians in the use of complex health-care technology.
“Although projects that offer a defined and direct path to implementation – with clear and positive results – are encouraged, studies of problems for which deeper understanding is needed before effective solutions can be developed are also important,” Flack said.
In 2017, the Foundation awarded grants to researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in Ohio and Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, which is part of the Trinity Health System.
Awards are restricted to 501(c)(3) organizations in the United States and tax-exempt charitable organizations in Canada. Grants will be made to the sponsoring organization (hospital, university, clinic, etc.), not to individuals or departments.
Applications should be submitted to Flack at mflack@aami.org by Dec. 31. Awards will be made in June 2018. For more information, please visit www.aami.org/TheFoundation.
Video Outlines Healthcare Cybersecurity’s ‘Fearsome Four’
A new video from AAMI, developed in collaboration with Accompany Partners, offers a creative take on the “Fearsome Four” weaknesses in hospitals, as described by cybersecurity expert Kevin Fu during his presentation at the AAMI 2017 Conference & Expo in Austin, Texas.
“Are we secure? The answer is ‘no.’ What’s your next question?” said Fu, who is chief scientist of Virta Labs, Inc. and director of the Archimedes Center for Medical Device Security and the Security and Privacy Research Group at the University of Michigan.
That question, according to Fu, should either be how quickly could a hospital recover from a cyberattack or how well the system will tolerate threats. Stakeholders, he stressed at the conference, should “focus on availability of care” when it comes to evaluating the importance of any given cyberthreat.
The video is available at www.aami.org/FearsomeFour.