When Edward Smith was getting start in health technology management three decades ago, he was involved in maintaining the X-ray film processor. A lot has changed since those early days, but the fundamental task of keeping medical equipment operating efficiently to support the best possible patient outcomes has always been the prime objective.
Today, Smith is the manager of clinical engineering at Parkland Health and Hospital System, in Dallas, Texas. HealthCare Business News spoke to him about the ways the industry has evolved, how his relationships with manufacturers have changed, and what advice he has for the next generation of HTM professionals entering the workforce.
HCB News: When you think back to the early days of your career, what are some of the biggest differences compared to now? Edward Smith: When I first entered this field over 30 years ago we had vendors that would provide free service on imaging devices when equipment, film, and film processing chemicals were purchased. OEMs would provide free technical support, and equipment did not require service keys. Some OEMs would provide free training.
HCB News: How has your role evolved since you first got started in HTM? Have you worked for different hospitals? ES: I started my career as film processor maintenance engineer and progressed to service higher end equipment such as MR. I have since been trained and worked on diagnostic X-ray, dental systems, mammography systems, CT, and MR devices. I have been employed by Parkland Health for 21 years and have been a manager for 17 years. As an engineer I have been employed by one hospital, but have been a designated engineer for two separate hospitals
HCB News: At Parkland, are you seeing the convergence of IT and clinical engineering? What has this meant for you and your team? ES: Yes, we have to work closely with both our IT department and PACS team. As a department we realized about 18 years ago that our team would need to have training on the network side to reduce downtime. Our department purchased network analyzers, and took networking classes to have a better understanding of the workflow. As more digital equipment was purchased our team had to grow our skills to be qualified to support these devices. This has also created some struggles as we depend on both of those teams to troubleshoot both network, and PACS issues.
The one drawback from this advancement is that the clinical engineering team is the first responder when devices cannot transfer images, and we have to prove that the device is working properly. At times this is a slow process and can delay patient care.
