Page 3 - CED Webinar outline: Partnering with Clinicians

Introduction to CEs Partnering with Clinicians: 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.”
● CE-Clinician Partnership for priority medical devices:

○ Cardiac diseases, stroke, and diabetes 3
■ Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs)—mainly cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes—are the world’s biggest killers. More
than 36 million people die annually from NCDs (63% of global deaths), including more than 14 million people who die too young between the ages of 30 and
70. Low- and middle-income countries already bear 86% of the burden of these premature deaths, resulting in cumulative economic losses of US$7 trillion over
the next 15 years and millions of people trapped in poverty. To strengthen national efforts to address the burden of NCDs, the World Health Assembly
endorsed the WHO Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of NCDs 2013-2020 in May 2013.
■ The Global Action Plan provides Member States, international partners and WHO with a road map and menu of policy options which, when implemented
collectively between 2013 and 2020, will contribute to progress on 9 global NCD targets to be attained in 2025. One of these nine targets specifically addresses
the issue of access to medical technologies and aims at an increase up to “an 80% availability of the affordable basic technologies and essential medicines,
including generics, required to treat major noncommunicable diseases in both public and private facilities“. (WHO Medical Devices Unit Work in Progress)
○ Cancer management 4
■ The WHO publication (at this link) addresses medical devices that can be used for management of cancer and specifically describes medical devices for six
types of cancer: breast, cervical, colorectal, leukemia, lung and prostate.
1 https://www.who.int/medical_devices/definitions/en/
2 https://www.who.int/medical_devices/support/en/
3 https://www.who.int/medical_devices/priority/cvds/en/
4 https://www.who.int/medical_devices/publications/priority_med_dev_cancer_management/en/
https://ced.ifmbe.org/ | info@ced.ifmbe.org