Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Technicians. Important to establish the physical placement/embedding of devices
and equipment in the facility, interacting with existing computer networks and
communication grids. Any changes required on the existing infrastructure or
service practices will be difficult (due to the strict requisites and certifications
in healthcare) and should be planned well in advance.
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Patients. It is vital to develop medical devices in a user-centered approach. In
many cases, users are doctors or nurses, but often they are patients. In these
cases, they should be involved from the earliest development stages.
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Market analysts. They should provide detailed information about current and
upcoming technologies and solutions, trends in the specific field of the product
being developed, and should also be involved in setting some PDS (e.g. cost).
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Communication and media advisors. Not only should they be involved in
planning dissemination and advertising of the developed product, but they should
create a plan for enticing the media, particularly for highly innovative devices.
On the end-user side, all these professionals are coordinated essentially by
a few decision makers, such as hospital administrators (or board), or private
healthcare facilities owners. These decision makers often have a technical or
medical background, but will collect advice from their key staff on most decisions
about the selection of health technologies or investing in new products. The bridge
between the development team and all other actors, including the decision makers,
marketing, and healthcare professionals, has to be coordinated by the project
leader.
3.2
The Development Team
As previously stated, development teams have to incorporate researchers from a
variety of fields:
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Electronic engineering: sensors, actuators, communication hardware/protocols,
data processing.
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Computer science/Information Systems: data communication, data storage, data
mining, security protocols, user interfaces.
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Biomedical engineering: usability, hardware, medical data acquisition and inter-
pretation.
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Materials engineering: materials selection, device housing/casing, user inter-
faces.
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Design: user profiles, concept development, ergonomics, aesthetics, interfaces,
device housing.
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Social sciences; user-perception of devices, user needs, questionnaires and
interpretation, epidemiological aspects.
Obviously, the composition of the team is highly dependent on the specific
device, but currently most devices will require tackling at least some of the
