Empowering the Biomedical/CE Professional
In this installment, we will look at image artifacts, a common service issue with diagnostic ultrasound. Image artifacts are described in many ways but are essentially the areas of the image with missing information (dropouts) and static (non-moving) and/or dynamic (moving) artifacts. When a service call comes in for image artifacts in general, the first item we want to address is the transducer. If the customer tries a different transducer with the same format (ideally linear or curvilinear) and the issue goes away, we have determined the probe is the issue and we are done. We also want to ask...
Last month i wrote a very convincing argument for my belief that email is not a method of communication. So email is possibly the worst means for communication. Then what is the best method? Yep, it’s face-to-face. Face-to-face allows us to not only hear the words and voice inflections, which together total 45 percent of the message, but also to see the body language. Since body language carries 55 percent of the message, it should be considered very important, and that is my topic this month. Let us begin with two cautions. First, when observing body language, it is important...
Have you ever experienced the challenge of trying to obtain specific information from someone who refuses to stray from the “company line” on any particular subject? I have little tolerance, in general, for scripted statements in response to direct questions. I have noticed that any small amount of patience I start out with tends to dissolve quickly, as I am shuffled from level to level within an organization because no one is willing to provide a straight answer. If I am seeking clarification for a specific purpose, I am only driven to push harder every time that same annoying canned...
In my last column, I mentioned our new funding formula and how it will be based upon graduate outcomes instead of contact hours or “seat time.” Our campus president spoke at our advisory committee meeting this past week, and several committee members voiced concern over the new funding proposal. Their most pressing overall concern is that our campus is open-enrollment, meaning other than academic readiness standards put into place by individual programs, everyone with a high school diploma or GED is accepted. For many programs, ours included, if they need developmental math, writing or reading, they must complete those courses...
Network worms are a class of malicious software (a.k.a. Malware) which self-replicate across a network among computer systems. In a theoretical sense I find them to be amazing and incredibly interesting, but in a practical sense they can be extremely difficult to deal with effectively. Typically IT/IS security teams have methods to detect, investigate, remediate and prevent infection on desktop, laptops and servers they manage; however, clinical engineers have a much greater challenge in that the same methods cannot often be used with medical devices, for many reasons. Like any other piece of malware, there must be an infection vector...
IT and finance are closer than ever
It and finance executives are closer than ever in American businesses, according to an article published in Financial Times on March 21, 2012. “Corporate finance and IT departments have become ever more closely intertwined,” the article says, because finance needs IT tools to monitor and run the finance function. And because good or bad IT investments can make or break an organization. This may be a bad sign, as Healthcare Technology Management (Biomed) departments strive to determine their roles in the future of health care. As we all know, HTM departments may report many places in an organization: Facilities Engineering,...
Career Strategies to Meet the Economic Challenges of Today
We have heard it over and over how “economic projections are far from rosy” (Bloomberg, Feb 14, 2012), and the economy and employment trends continue to fluctuate. One thing that is evident is that employers are facing some very difficult challenges, especially in workforce planning. At the top of every employer’s concern is the challenge of finding and retaining the best-qualified employees, and in today’s market, available high-quality talent is extremely limited. Employers, especially in health care, are forced to do more with less resources, and budget constraints continue to hold back hiring even for critical positions. They are dealing...
Rushing to the Rescue (In a Vacuum)
Clinical engineers are frequently called to work on time-sensitive and costly technology repair situations, many times which directly affect patient care workflows. CEs also have brothers-in-arms for those same circumstances in the IT staff that respond to incidents across technology platforms. Taking into account the previous topics I’ve written on CE/IT introductions, change management, security and networking I will present a (not so) hypothetical situation for which these groups should begin to coordinate before an incident occurs. As with any technology incident management work, the aim is to reduce downtime, reduce expenses, and contain a failure mode from affecting others....
Being involved in a service profession means there will undoubtedly be times when the service you provide may fall short of the expectations of those you serve. There may be any number of reasons why it happens, but it does happen. To be a competent service professional means you must be prepared for those times. It is good to polish your technical skills and customer service techniques to reduce the frequency of unhappy customers. Additionally, though, you need to be skilled in something called ‘service recovery.’ The following analogy may help demonstrate the value of knowing when and how to...
Evolution is a pretty simple in principle when you apply it to life. I would argue it is applicable in all facets of our ho-hum existence. Everybody does it, and some don’t even realize it. For those of you who are not following me, I’m talking about survival of the fittest, cream rising to the top, etc. If you are not going forward, you are going backwards. Even if you think you are maintaining the status quo, by default you are going backwards or being left behind because there are others who are improving their position and surpassing you. Hence,...
