With so much happening in the field, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation’s president and CEO, Mary Logan, says that this year’s conference is designed as a “must-attend” event. She shared some of the details with DOTmed HealthCare Business News, and spoke about what’s planned for this year’s annual conference, taking place May 31 - June 2, in Philadelphia.

HCBN: What are your top three favorite accomplishments for 2013 and why?

ML: It’s hard to pick just three, but I’ll try! For the entire health care community, AAMI’s most important work in 2013 was the outstanding alarm system management webinar series, which we capped at 3,500 registered sites — a record. What makes me smile the most about this series is the opportunity for multi-disciplinary teams from health care delivery organizations to attend and discuss each webinar. Some sites have had as many as 10 individuals from across the organization sitting in the same room and learning together. That’s an amazing service to the health care community, and we were able to offer it free of charge because we had some dedicated corporate sponsors to underwrite the expenses.



For the health care technology management community, the most important work of AAMI in 2013 was the launch of the “core curriculum” for BMET educational programs. The profession has needed this standardized foundation for educational content, and this document has many uses for individual BMETS for career development as well.

On a more emotional level, the highest note of pride in 2013 was that our Foundation’s Healthcare Technology Safety Institute won two prestigious national awards — the “GE Pioneering Spirit Award” from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, and a “Cheers” award from the Institute for Safe Medication Practices.

HCBN: You mentioned last year that you’d be working on some big new standards as well as a major industry education initiative. Can you share with us any updates on those topics?

ML: We just assumed responsibility from another organization for a major new standards committee, for anesthesia and respiratory technology. The timing of this new committee coming to AAMI was uncanny, because at around the same time, we decided with the FDA that the 2014 AAMI-FDA Summit topic would be ventilation technology. We also are starting development of a new TIR (Technical Information Report) on low and intermediate disinfection of medical devices, as this was a gap in our portfolio of standards in sterilization and disinfection. We have a new committee that is addressing sustainability issues. They have authored a white paper already and will be developing more substantial material in the coming years. And, the most visible standards work that is moving toward adoption is for the replacement of the Luer Connector. We have published a number of articles about the patient safety issue with the Luer, and I would encourage the HTM community to become familiar with it by looking at the “Hot Topics” page on our website: www. aami.org/hottopics/connectors/index.html

Our major education initiative is AAMI University, which we will be launching in early June. We’re really excited about this new online platform that will initially host our industry training programs and as we build it out, will host education and training opportunities for the HTM community. Stay tuned!

HCBN: As far as the upcoming show goes, is there a particular reason that Philadelphia was chosen for the conference location this year?

ML: The location of this year’s meeting in Philadelphia is great because there are so many hospitals within 200 miles, making it accessible for a lot more folks. The AAMI conference educational sessions keep getting better and better each year, and this year we have changed the look and feel of the show to create a much stronger sense of community for attendees, with more interactive sessions.



HCBN: What can attendees expect at this year’s conference?

ML: Experts will be providing up-to-date practical guidance on virtually every major issue facing the field. For example, there will be sessions on wireless issues, imaging, and batteries, as well as device connectivity and alarm management. We’ve recruited some incredible experts to present guidance and we are really stressing the importance of interaction this year. And, of course, hearing what’s important from George Mills from The Joint Commission is always a “must not miss” session. Finally, where else can you go to interact with some 200 vendors all in one place?

For anyone who might be in the market for a job, or just thinking about it, the Career Center is a fantastic networking spot with recruiters. We’ve also enhanced the educational sessions to include a track specifically focused on career advancement. There’s one session, for example, called — Movin’ On Up: AAMI’s New Career
Ladder Shows the Way.

Bottom line — and I can’t stress this enough — this conference is designed as a “must attend” event for clinical engineers, biomedical equipment technicians, IT professionals with responsibility for medical devices, and other technology-oriented professionals. We want attendees to leave Philadelphia with meaningful tips, best practices, and practical guidance. It’s sure to be a fun and rewarding experience.

HCBN: I see you have a session on the unique device identifier (UDI) — how will that be an important issue for attendees this year and going forward?

ML: It’s important for the health care technology management community to learn and plan for the implementation of the UDI rule, so this education session is a jumpstart on that. If I were working in health care technology management in a hospital, I would see the UDI as a great opportunity to showcase our department’s value beyond repair and preventive maintenance, because HTMs are ideally suited to “own” the UDI for all of the devices that HTMs manage.

The new UDI rule initially impacts the medical device industry. Longer term, though, the whole intent is to benefit patients. Once implemented, it will be much easier for health care delivery organizations to track devices when needed for recalls, adverse incident investigation, product safety alerts, and the like. Set up well in a health care delivery organization, it can be used to document a specific patient device (e.g., an implantable) right in the EHR, and can be tied in with a device inventory management system.