AAMI is seeking a qualified consultant to help develop benchmarking resources that would enable hospitals and clinical engineering departments to evaluate their performance, procedures, and policies.

During this 2nd phase of the project, the Consultant will determine a method to collect appropriate data; determine specific benchmarks using scientific methodology, the means to achieve them, and the effect of implementation; and describe results and recommendations and any need for further work.

At its June meeting, the AAMI Board of Directors reaffirmed its support for the benchmarking project and requested that AAMI's Technology Management Council (TMC) prepare the RFP to begin work on phase two of the project - conducting a benchmarking survey and developing benchmarks.
"The Board recognizes the value of the project to an important segment of the membership and the need for expeditious resolution," the Board noted.

The AAMI Board's action came in response to the recent completion of the first phase of the project, which examined whether benchmarking is feasible and desirable.

ECRI Institute, which conducted the first phase of the project over an eight-month period, determined that benchmarking is both desirable and feasible. Highlights of the ECRI report were discussed during a session at AAMI's Annual Conference in June, and are featured in a cover story in the July/August issue of AAMI's journal, Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology (BI&T).

The benchmarking project is a top priority of the TMC, which was formed in 2004 to better serve the interests of biomedical equipment technicians, clinical engineers, and other managers of medical technology who are members of AAMI.

RFP Available
Companies that are interested in bidding on this work can view a Request for Proposal (RFP) for Phase 2 of this project here:
http://aami.org/_rfp/Benchmarking2.rfp.pdf
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 1.

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