8 Clinical Engineering

Clinical Engineering (CE) represents the part of Biomedical Engineering focused on the applications of theories and methodologies of the broad biomedical engineering field to improve the quality of health services. Its activities especially concern the appropriate management of biomedical technologies (from purchasing to risk controlling) and the development and the adjustment of hospital informative systems and telemedicine networks. CE combines with the medicine knowledge for conducing of healthcare activities by providing expertise in a wide spectrum of topics, from human physiology and biomechanics to electronics and computer science. As biomedical technology developed towards ever more complex systems and spread in every clinical practice, so the field of CE grew. Such growth has been accompanied by an analogous expansion of biomedical and clinical engineering studies at the University and development of skills and tasks of CE professionals. The main aim of CE is to support the use of biomedical technology by health professionals and hospital organizations with appropriate skills in order to reach the best compromise between clinical efficacy/efficiency, patient and operators safety, care quality and innovation, and management and equipment costs. CE techniques and methodologies are mainly focused on safe, appropriate and economical management of technologies, as well as on governance and management (limited to specific responsibilities) of healthcare facility. Thus, CE covers all those knowledge and methods applied to the management of biomedical technologies, ranging from their early evaluation and assessment, to their technical conduct, to their dismissing. Thus the chapter will highlight different aspects of technology management by exploring technical and/or clinical, and/or economic issues related to the individuation and acquisition of appropriate equipment (i.e., Health Technology Assessment), acceptance testing, management of preventive and corrective maintenance, risk management, planning of quality testing, ICT management, management of maintenance contracts, equipments replacement planning, and so on.