By Danielle C. McGeary, CHTM
It is such an exciting time to be working in the healthcare technology management (HTM) field! With the rapid changes occurring in healthcare delivery and management, combined with the advent of virtual reality and artificial intelligence into the health technology space, the need for experienced HTM professionals is only going to grow exponentially.
However, somehow the HTM field is struggling to attract new people. How can this be? With health technology as complex as it has ever been, how can a field that is so necessary to the safe, effective, and efficient operations of a healthcare system be at a loss for people?
There are surely a few factors at play here, with the first being a lack of HTM-specific academic programs. People who want to pursue an academic degree in HTM have few places to go to school. In fact, many areas of the country do not have any HTM-specific academic programs at all. When students with a technical aptitude are selecting a college, they are choosing general electronics programs, which are exactly what they are: general. If no one is pushing these students to go into HTM or making them aware that being a biomedical equipment technician (BMET) is a rewarding and lucrative career option, these talented students will be sucked up by other industries.
The same thing is occurring with our biomedical engineering majors. With close to 200 biomedical engineering degree programs in the United States, these students need to know that HTM is a career option—why go into research and development when you can be a clinical engineer?
The second factor here is that most people do not know HTM is a career. Lack of awareness about the field in general is most likely causing the lack of HTM-specific academic programs. To expand on this issue, even those who are somewhat aware of HTM as an occupation do not even begin to understand the extent of everything HTM professionals do in a hospital. HTM professionals are part of the clinical care team and do so much more than just fixing broken medical equipment.
As healthcare has continued to evolve over the past 10 years, so has the HTM professional’s role in the field. HTM professionals find solutions through technology to constantly improve patient safety, the quality of care, and the patient experience. HTM professionals do this while also minimizing financial costs, ensuring devices are interoperable with other clinical systems, and safeguarding medical devices from cyberattacks. They solve complex healthcare problems, are part of multidisciplinary hospital teams, and must be able to speak the same language as hospital executives.
Now here is where you come in. Promoting HTM is everyone’s responsibility. With 62% of the HTM population being over 52 years old, the field is going to have a mass exodus of staff in the next 10 to 15 years. It is essential that we get ahead of this now before the HTM personnel pipeline challenge gets exponentially worse than it already is.
Let’s also not forget that the folks who will be retiring are the well-seasoned and experienced HTM professionals and senior leaders. The field will not just be losing bodies, it will be losing an immense amount of expertise and knowledge that cannot be easily replaced.
This is truly a call to action, and everyone can help this cause by helping to spread awareness about HTM. We must spread awareness to children, college students, adults, and even within our own hospitals. If hospital leadership and staff do not truly understand our roles, the field will never elevate and continue to grow. We must also start recruiting young professionals now so that the field has time to cross-train and mentor them before all this seasoned talent is lost.
AAMI has helped to make promoting HTM easy by creating a tool called “HTM in a Box.” HTM in a Box is a free digital resource designed to engage students and prospective HTM professionals. It’s an interactive virtual platform that puts three exciting HTM career presentations at your fingertipsthat are tailored to specific age groups: middle school, high school, and college and beyond (including adults and career changers)
You can access the presentations at www.aami.org/HTMinaBox, and you do not need to be an AAMI member to use it. The site offers additional resources to use when promoting the field, including: a list of HTM-specific academic programs by state, scripts to use when contacting schools via phone or email, an orientation video explaining “HTM in a Box,” an HTM Career Brochure, and a new HTM video that promotes the field. AAMI is here to help and wants to take away the time involved with prepping and planning for a career presentation. With this tool, all you have to do is set the date and show up.
So, let’s work together to overcome the workforce shortage and help make a lasting impact for the future of HTM by spreading awareness about the field to people of all ages and throughout healthcare.
Danielle C. McGeary, CHTM, is vice president of healthcare technology management at AAMI.
I personally have never cared for or do I promote the name Healthcare Technology Management. It sounds like we sit in an office shuffling papers and going to meetings all day. It does not reflect the dedication to maintaining the safe operation of medical devices through the calibration, repair and assurance that these devices are operating to the Manufacturers guidelines. It sounds like a group of “Managers” came up with this. We are trying to do less with less as a group instead of proving the need to do things properly with the needed personnel. After I retire I suspect I will read more and more reports of Medical equipment failure do to this. The increased dumbing down of maintaining Medical Devices with Alternative Equipment Maintenance. As long as you have a well written policy!
I have been in this field for 20 years and my pay is still nowhere near competitive or even fair. So many young talented people I meet can make more in the construction or Building fields and that’s where they are going. If leaders in this field truly want to recruit new talented individuals they will need to put forth more effort in pay.
Being one of those leaving the field in 2020 let me say why the industry doesn’t attract new recruits. The pay is less than other technical fields and the stress higher due to being on call and dealing with medical staff. I went through a Biomedical Electronics training program with Los Angeles Valley College from 1978 – 1980. That program enabled graduates to be able to troubleshoot and repair to the component level, something that is only done about 5% of the time today. So the moniker HTM is more appropriate today than Biomedical Engineer. This may work well for the younger generation than for us older Engineers. When you have an affinity toward troubleshooting/repair and or even design today’s environment is more management oriented. With my current employer, transitioned from Hospital Employee of 38 years to third party entity and it is all about numbers now. Percent PM completions; Repair turn around time numbers etc. As my current employer would remark, ” It is what it is”
Deja vu all over again …
(And before I commence with my age-old critique. I want to make clear that I have encouraged others to enter the field. Most recently, when my 40-something son-in-law was looking for a career change, I encouraged him to consider HTM. He has since completed a BNET training program and is actively seeking employment northwest of Philadelphia.)
Back to the matter at hand … I’ve been in the field 40+ years, am semi-retired, and I gave up spitting into this wind long ago, when AAMI changed the name of the field to combat the already obvious decline in people entering the field. As strategy goes, that was right up there with rearranging Titanic deck chairs.
But I let go of that battle long ago and resigned myself to using the acronym in my writing. Yet here we are still foundering, so …
First, where’s the demand you claim exists NOW? It ain’t pent up, that’s for sure. Are you saying it’ll be slowly trickling out over the next five-ten years as we Boomers are all collecting Social Security? I’m reminded of George Bailey (it is Christmas Eve, after all) saying to Mr Potter “Wait? Wait for what?” and when he was in the S&L during the bank run when his anxious customers are telling him they needs their money NOW.
Young people making career choices not only want some certainty that there will be demand for their skills on graduation but also that there is a career growth path available to them, The statistic cited here suggesting that the median age of those field is close to retirement age does imply that openings will soon be present, but it also suggests that others mid-career may have got tired of waiting for them.
Again, as I’ve said so many times before, the problem isn’t insufficient supply, it’s uncertain demand tied at least in part to the narrow focus of the field.
For years I encouraged clinical engineering to spread its wings beyond its narrow focus and look for healthcare related technical and engineering problems going unmet. My establishment a personal computer support program over 30 years ago initially brought me derision from some of my peers but later afforded me the opportunity to engage in interoperability and systems engineering work. And that’s just the path that opened to me. Tremendous generalizable expertise Is hidden in plain sight under everyone’s noses and problems that could use it exist, but no one even thinks to ask “Can you help?” Or, worse, “We can help!”
Nature abhors a vacuum; someone will step up and address the problems.
HTM’s in a box alright, and if its leadership doesn’t start thinking outside of it, the box will continue to shrink.
Hello All,
Thank you for a great foresight to the future of HTM Danielle. It indeed is an exciting time in the HTM career field with technology moving in many directions away from solid state equipment and more into the AI VR and IT worlds the future of biomed has to change also. We have to be able to continue to work on the solid state equipment such as ESU’s and centrifuges and vital signs monitors but we also have to develop more into the IT world and understand how our systems connect and work in tandem with IT systems. Our division with our IT brethren has to mend and coexist with mutual respect. For to many years Biomeds and IT departments have fought over who does what that line has became blended and we have to work together for the future of the good of the patient.
The previous response is exactly what has gotten HTM into the growing need it is in. One person in an old biomed shop seeing the future and where it is going and not getting the support from the people above or equal too. We now need our leadership, starting with AAMI to push from the top down and that is what is beginning to happen. We need the HTM voices to be stepping forward and forcing the Hospitals we work with to let us into the fold of the decision making. As a unified voice around the world it can happen and has to happen. We still have the negative nellies in shops but I believe their ranks are dwindling as we move forward and the next generation is voicing up and pushing in the doors to the C-Suite and telling them how we can help and make the Hospitals better both Patient Safety wise and Economical wise.
AAMI is leading the way to a new Apprenticeship program working through the Department of Labor, giving it merit and viability. We already in the HTM field have to stop being introverted shadow dwellers. we no longer can be the quiet superheros that swoop in save the shift and disappear again. I know this was the old guard mind set it was said to me by a prior Director, Biomed should be seen but never heard. We need to be putting our heads out there and educate our leaders on how we can help to better the patient safety experience while maintaining economic viability. We have to work hand in hand with IT. They do not understand the patient care side of what we do, that is why we do what we do. we need to also maintain our working relationships with facilities and continue that strong bridge but most of all we need to be voicing our field to the next generation that is just starting out. We need to draw students into HTM and bring them up. Sticking our heads in the sand and saying there isn’t a growing problem is ignorance at it’s best. The only way we can do this is, by attending job fairs and speaking in schools. The HTM in a box makes this easier to do but it can not even be shown if we do not reach out to the schools and let them know who we are
In our system it got to the point that we decided to grow our own. we approached our local college and started a program. Out of our first 5 graduates 3 were hired by our system and the other two stayed instate and got hired immediately. As the instructor for the Biomed classes I have spoken with many HTM departments across the country and recruiters that have said they will take all the students they can get because they are so short staffed and can’t find recruits. It is not a illusion that there is a shortage and it is getting worse. it is a reality.
Well For me, entering my 40th year as a Biomed, I am active at a regional and national level within the industry, I am a BMET of the year award recipient, I am currently working at the point of care, supporting technology the highest level in our industry, for one of our nations leading academic medical centers. Using my perspective I will say that outreach, recruitment and education are important. But not the key thing HTM needs to focus on. I will tell the following story to illustrate my point. As a youngster, I was a Second class scout participating in a Jamboree, One of the training exercises was a rescue scenario. The “victim” was described as being in a cabin, passed out, on the floor with a bleeding head wound. We were told the cabin had a gas stove that “may” be malfunctioning. Our team entered the cabin, put an excellently tied bandage on the head wound, and fashioned a litter to carry the victim out to the aid station. On exiting the cabin, the umpire informed us the victim and our team were now overcome and likely “dead” of CO poisoning but, did say our bandage was excellently applied. This lesson has stuck with me all my life and illustrates a point AAMI, “HTM” and its leaders should take note of. As a BMET my core functions have always been supporting, maintaining and repairing medical electronics and technology at the point of care. Key resources needed to perform these functions are access to accurate comprehensive factory service manuals, information on accessing diagnostics and the ability to buy parts needed to perform needed repairs and maintenance. One of the very serious trends that I see happen to me directly, is companies telling me “we are sorry we will not give service information” and “we will not sell you parts because we don’t let anyone else service “our” equipment”. Unlike the “cybersecurity” issue, and the staffing issues, the “Right to Repair” issue is a immediate, very clear and present danger to our profession – IMHO.
At A time when AAMI and HTM has a new council of “Healthcare Technology Management” Collectively, our industry’s leadership should consider the Scout camp analogy I have provided and consider that all the other issues our profession faces, will become irrelevant if the current trends of OEMs trying to shut HTM out of the service models for equipment continues. I myself would hate have to future Biomed schools teaching courses like “advanced packing and shipping”, “tape gun use and maintenance” and “HTM methods for OEM rep escorting and coat holding” Anyone else feel the same way? please comment below…