by
Lisa Chamoff, Contributing Reporter | August 19, 2015
From the August 2015 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“This program was specifically designed to support customers’ changing business needs.” In Taiwan, UnisonMed Academy offers hands-on training for multi-vendor CT, MR, nuclear medicine and cardiology systems to in-house hospital service and third-party engineers from all over the world, while also providing remote support via phone or email, and even sending trainers overseas, says Arthur Tsou, UnisonMed Academy’s general manager.
“We send doctors or radiologists overseas to teach local medical and health care personnel to operate the system and enhance their image diagnosis technique,” Tsou says. “In the near future, we intend to get involved much deeper into the academic circle and hospital management, which includes nursing and senior management. We aim to be a linking bridge among industry, academia and the hospital.”
A computerized world
Training providers have been challenged with imaging equipment that has become increasingly computerized. Cover, of RSTI, says the institute’s basic X-ray courses have been including more computer interfacing and software-based training as systems have become increasingly more complex.
“Everything is really moving more toward the computer world,” Cover says. “From the computerized standpoint, we’re teaching them to be computer engineers as well as electronics engineers.” Jeremy Probst of Technical Prospects agrees that there is more IT in the imaging space and their training includes teaching engineers such things as how to load software and diagnose problems using service software. Engineers now more than ever need an IT skill set to be effective, he says.
“The engineering teams that are working on this equipment need to have a higher understanding of IT and computers as a whole,” Jeremy Probst says. Tsou of UnisonMed Academy says most systems still need biomedical engineers to operate and maintain the image quality, which can’t be substituted by IT engineers. “They do have separate skill sets,” Tsou says.
“Therefore, we provide the fundamental electronics, fundamental radiation and physics for the IT engineers at the first stage. And we also have the theory and hands-on practice [to] help them get into [the] biomedical engineers’ world without too many problems.”
Education before training
There’s also been somewhat of a gap in education. There is no specific degree or certification required to service imaging equipment, and while more colleges are launching biomedical engineering programs, few offer specific training for imaging devices, Jeremy Probst says.“A lot of colleges are bringing people up to speed on electronics and biomedical engineering.
