Arlington, Oct. 21, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A new resource is available for clinical engineers and healthcare technology management (HTM) professionals just in time for the October 21 celebration of Global Clinical Engineering Day.

The Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) and the Global Clinical Engineering Alliance (GCEA) are pleased to announce that they have translated previously English-only resources into Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, and French.

AAMI’s HTM Benchmarking Guide is available for free in these four languages and in English. These translations are the first product stemming from the memorandum of understanding recently signed between AAMI and GCEA. The guide will be translated into Japanese, Arabic, Russian, and Turkish at a later date.

This translation project is part of AAMI and GCEA’s ongoing work to promote the HTM and clinical engineering field worldwide. Critically, clinical engineers in developing economies sometimes lack the resources to bring their expertise to bear. This translation project addresses this need.

The AAMI HTM Benchmarking Guide includes resources that new and established HTM and clinical engineering departments can use to measure their performance and ensure excellent patient care. The document provides information on:

• Managing equipment, personnel, maintenance, training, and other departmental issues.
• Collecting data on equipment and performance and calculating performance metrics.
• Benchmarking department performance compared to other HTM departments and programs.
• Improving a department’s performance using data and peer feedback.
  

The benchmarking guide was first published in 2018 and has been consistently used as a resource by American HTM departments since its release. It was produced by clinical engineers and longtime AAMI members Ted Cohen, Frank Painter, Matt Baretich, and David Braeutigam.

According to Danielle McGeary, AAMI Vice President of HTM:

AAMI’s HTM Benchmarking Guide is an important resource that helps HTM departments function in an optimal manner and ensure patient safety. The translation of this document into eight additional languages extends AAMI’s impact on the HTM field to a new audience of healthcare professionals around the globe.

GCEA President Dr. Yadin David added:

Our diverse global clinical engineering community will benefit significantly from the translation of this guide on healthcare technology management and benchmarking. Working together, GCEA and AAMI will continue to facilitate the sharing of such guidelines that increase the capacity of clinical engineering progress, regardless of the linguistic barriers faced interntionally.

The English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, and French versions of the guide can be found here. Questions? Contact htm@aami.org.  Members of the press interested in these efforts to promote the HTM and clinical engineering field are encouraged to contact the AAMI Media Team at dvisnovsky@aami.org.