This report originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of DOTmed Business News

The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation's (AAMI) 2009 Annual Conference Exposition is right around the corner - happening June 6-8, 2009 in Baltimore. Visit DOTmed at booth #753.

The AAMI Conference will offer more than 50 important and new educational sessions focusing on issues involving wireless networks and Joint Commission compliance, as well as staffing and productivity metrics, to more than 1,000 medical technology professionals who attend. "AAMI's Annual Conference & Expo is one of the few events that is dedicated solely to key issues surrounding the management of medical devices in the patient care environment," says Leah C. Lough, Executive Vice President of Education and Membership Services. "In today's challenging economy, it's critical that hospitals and other clinical settings stay up-to-date on Joint Commission requirements for medical devices and ways to manage wireless networks, software applications, CMS "never events," security, imaging technologies, evidence-based maintenance decisions, real-time location systems, IT and clinical engineering convergence, performance benchmarking and many other areas."
Highlights

Did you ever wish you could improve relationships at your facility? Tensions can and do run high between clinicians and biomedical/clinical engineers. Friction can easily be fueled because there is inadequate support between the two groups and a lack of understanding about how each professional contributes to patient care. ARAMARK Healthcare's Izabella Gieras, CCE, director of the clinical engineering department at New York-based Mount Sinai Medical Center will offer ways to develop creative approaches to building and sustaining partnerships during a session in the "Big Picture" track. "This session will focus on the evolving role of validation with biomeds, as well as verification," says Rick Schrenker, Systems Engineering Manager for Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and session coordinator for "The Application of Systems and Software Engineering to Clinical Engineering." "You often hear validation coupled with verification," he says verification is the process that ensures something meets its specifications, while validation focuses on requirements. Raoul Jetley, a visiting scientist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, will also speak on verification.

The "Patient Safety" track will hold a session called "Understanding and Addressing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Never Events." CMS defines a never event as an error in medical care that is clearly identifiable, preventable and serious in the consequences for patients. Chair of this session, Bryanne M. Patail, senior biomedical engineer for the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs states that if you are a Medicaid/Medicare facility, your bottom line could be impacted if you make an error and those never events occur.