By Luis E. Fernández –
The Third International Clinical Engineering and Health Technology Management Congress, a biannual event organized by IFMBE’s Clinical Engineering Division (CED), was a huge success this year with over 1,000 participants from over 70 countries.
Rome, Italy was the setting for this year’s event on October 20-23, where the Italian Association for Clinical Engineering and CED joined forces to host important gatherings within the congress, such as CED Board and Collaborators Meetings, Regional CE and HTM Meetings, the Global Clinical Engineering Summit, Project Advancement Meetings, and much more.
On October 20th, invited representatives from each country gathered by regions and discussed the primary challenges faced by Clinical Engineering professionals. After addressing each country’s situation, each region summarized their needs in preparation for the Global Clinical Engineering Summit. Nearly 70 country CE status reports can be found at ced.ifmbe.org/blog/ifmbe-ced-cestatus-cesummit2019.html.
During the Summit, a representative from each region communicated the main challenges faced by their countries. At the end of this important event, a list of 10 CE/HTM-related challenges was concluded and CED agreed to work on solutions in the next two years and show results in the next Global CE Summit. CED will be publishing this information in the following weeks.
III ICEHTMC hosted more than 1,000 students, teachers, professionals, providers, and key healthcare stakeholders for a chance to learn, network, and share international experiences about Clinical Engineering. The event included nearly 100 oral presentations, a poster exhibition with 240 investigations, and a MedTech products & services exhibition with over 40 companies.
Both the oral and poster presentations and were divided into 12 parallel session topics that included HTA, HTM, ICT, Project Management, Education, and others. The best three articles of each topic were nominated during a Gala Dinner that took place in the beautiful Villa Miani, where the best project of each topic was awarded, as well as the 2019 Global Health Technology Challenge Winner (the best project of all).
In the closing ceremony, the organizing committee announced that for the IV ICEHTMC, AAMI and CED will be joining forces to host the 2021 event in the United States (more information will be announced in the following months).
What we learned from this event is that the Clinical Engineering’s message has been reiterating positively, making the CE value clearer and more understandable for our stakeholders; key healthcare decision-makers, clinical engineers worldwide, and the wider public.
CED Chair Tom Judd: “Clinical Engineering has long made a significant contribution to healthcare quality, safety, innovation, and clinical outcomes. We are delighted to recognize and celebrate our global colleagues’ efforts; together we can make it better! Not only did we bring so many together to engage, learn, and grow, but we had an incredible setting to listen to others around the world during the Congress during October 21 Global Day, with many of our 200 countries with whom we are in contact.”
Find out more and join our work through our website ced.ifmbe.org.
