By David Scott
As the organizer of the Colorado Association of Biomedical Technicians’ (CABMET) Certification Study Group part of my job is to stay up to date with anything related to certification and ways to help techs prepare for the test or prepare for certification renewal. Which is partly what this column is about. The other part is regarding current events like my last column covering H.R.2118 and how it could effect everyone in HTM and how it might relate to certification.
I remember a little while back getting an email from AAMI to fill out a survey. The survey was related to certification. It asked questions about how much of your job involves each section of the certification test. I filled it out and didn’t think about it a lot after that. Now when reading the Certification Handbook, I see one line right after the schedule that says: “* There will be new exams for CBET, CLES, and CRES in 2018 based on the data found in a 2017 Job Task Analysis. Updated exam content outlines will be made available.”
I have seen that in the 2017 Handbook since this spring prior to the May 2017 testing period. The only thing I thought when I saw that is that it somehow may be related to the survey from AAMI. I keep checking the AAMI site and handbook to see if there are any updates. So far, I have not seen anything.
Then, I was looking at all the classes for the MD Expo in Orlando, Florida, on October 5-7. The schedule looks great, as usual, and I look forward to attending several classes. One class that caught my eye was titled: “ACI Certification Update: Recertification Policy and BMET Exam Updates,” presented by, Sherrie Schulte, CAE, Senior Director of Certification, AAMI.
This is the description of the class: “This session will present the updates and changes to the new recertification policy for CBET, CRES, CLES, and CHTM certifications through ACI. This session will also discuss updates to the BMET exam content outlines determined by a recent job task analysis. This update will inform certified individuals, as well as interested candidates, of the new developments to the exam as well as the overall scope of the designations.”
We have already discussed the recertification process here and by now it should be old news to all the readers of the column. What interests me are the “new developments to the exam as well as the overall scope of the designations.” This may be the answer I have been looking for since seeing that one line note from the 2017 Handbook.
My guess is that the test will be changing. That is almost a given by the description. The survey asked questions about the same categories that are currently on the certification exam. I think the changes may relate to the percentages of questions asked in each category. So maybe less questions from the Fundamentals of Electricity & Electronics and maybe more from the Healthcare Information Technology category or another category? I think we will find out very soon!
I will be attending this class along with several of the other interesting classes offered at the MD Expo Orlando. If you see me there take a minute and say “Hi.” I would like to hear from you.