Page 3 - CE Digital Health

Introduction to CE Digital Health: Definitions

● Health Technology : Defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in
1
the form of (medical) devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality
of lives". [CED focuses on devices and related clinical procedures & systems.] See WHO/WHA 60.29 (2007).
● Clinical Engineer : The WHO noted in 2018 that it is critical that “trained and qualified medical engineering professionals are
2
required to design, evaluate, regulate, maintain and manage medical devices, and train on their safe use in health systems around the
world. This role is referred to as clinical engineering (CE), biomedical engineering (BE), and/or health-care technology management
(HTM) dependent on regional terminology.”
● Digital Health and Digital Technologies: 3, 4
2018 Resolution WHO’s WHA71.7 – Urges Member States (Ministries of Health):
○ to assess their use of digital technologies for health, including in health information systems at national & subnational levels;

○ to consider, as appropriate, how digital technologies could be integrated into existing health systems infrastructures and
regulation, to reinforce national and global health priorities by optimizing existing platforms and services;

○ to work towards and support interoperability of digital technologies for health by, inter alia, promoting the use of international
and open standards as an affordable, effective and easily adaptable solution; and
○ to strengthen public health resilience and promote opportunities, as appropriate, through the use of digital technologies,

including to improve access to, and monitoring, sharing and use of, quality data, direct citizen, health worker and government
engagement, and to build capacity for rapid response to disease incidents and public health emergencies standards as an
affordable, effective and easily adaptable solution.
1 https://www.who.int/medical_devices/definitions/en/
2 https://www.who.int/medical_devices/support/en/
3 https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA71/A71_R7-en.pdf
4 https://www.who.int/health-topics/digital-health/
https://ced.ifmbe.org/ | info@ced.ifmbe.org