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Editor’s  Corner
Often do I hear at meetings debates about how many 

clinical engineers and technicians are needed 
per some quantifying unit. Quantifying unit like the 
volume or quantity of assets managed, the replacement 
or acquisition value of the assets managed, or number 
of patients’ beds, and even per volume of patients dis-
charged. However, seldom the debate reaches the level 
of how many such qualified personnel a system such as 
city or country or even the world may need.

Recent surveys attempted to identify the volume of 
clinical engineering professionals practicing around the 
world. They resulted either in very low response rate 
(Calil 2017) reflecting therefore estimate of very small 
community of CEs practitioners, or as designed by another 
survey organizers included variety of other than CE en-
gineering professionals such as biomedical engineering 
other engineering practitioners and technology managers 
(WHO 2018) that resulted in high volume count of about 
800,000 practitioners but could not clearly identified the 
share of CEs in that count. Knowledge about the gap, if 
one exists, between the volume of practicing qualified 
CEs and the volume of the needed CEs can help guide 
national and global policies, priorities, and program 
support that are needed to narrow and even eliminate 
the gap (if one exists) over time.

Following the publication in 1999 of its landmark 
manuscript about reducing preventable medical errors 
committed during provisioning of health care (http://
www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/1999/To-
Err-is-Human-Building-A-Safer-Health-System.aspx), the 
National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of 
Medicine), published in 2001 their report Crossing the 
Quality Chasm; A new Health System for the 21st Century 
(http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2001/
Crossing-the-Quality-Chasm-A-New-Health-System-for-
the-21st-Century.aspx), and followed up in 2015 with 
another landmark book about the criticality of getting 

the correct diagnosis in managing patient conditions 
and the underappreciated occurrence of diagnostic 
errors (http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Re-
ports/2015/Improving-Diagnosis-in-Healthcare.aspx). 
These reports call for urgent and fundamental change 
to healthcare system design, policies, processes, and the 
direction for the professionals who have stake in its out-
comes. These reports state that patients should be able 
to count on receiving care that meets their needs and is 
based on the best scientific knowledge – however that is 
too frequently is not the case. It furthermore points that 
health care harms patients and routinely fails to deliver 
its potential benefits. The 2001 report specifically states 
that “Faced with medical and technology rapid changes, 
the nation’s health care delivery system has fallen far 
short in its ability to translate knowledge into practice 
and to apply new technology safely and appropriately. And 
if the system cannot consistently deliver today’s science 
and technology, it is even less prepared to respond to the 
extraordinary advances that surely will emerge during 
the coming decades.”

Clinical engineers, according to ACCE definition I par-
ticipated in its creation in 1992, are “professionals who 
supports and advances patient care by applying engineering 
and managerial skills to healthcare technology.” (https://
accenet.org/about/Pages/ClinicalEngineer.aspx). While 
there are differences in some of the Clinical Engineers 
scope of practice between countries their focus is the 
same – deliver competent technology life cycle skills that 
support improvement in patient outcomes and wellness.   

This calls for clinical engineers to adopt professional 
guidance about the minimum requirements for education, 
training, and professional credentialing that will lead to 
building of competent practitioners’ capacity. Capacity 
that can deliver on the recommendations for plans to 
correct the above noted deficiencies.  

http://www.globalce.org
http://www.globalce.org
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/1999/To-Err-is-Human-Building-A-Safer-Health-System.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/1999/To-Err-is-Human-Building-A-Safer-Health-System.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/1999/To-Err-is-Human-Building-A-Safer-Health-System.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2001/Crossing-the-Quality-Chasm-A-New-Health-System-for-the-21st-Century.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2001/Crossing-the-Quality-Chasm-A-New-Health-System-for-the-21st-Century.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2001/Crossing-the-Quality-Chasm-A-New-Health-System-for-the-21st-Century.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2015/Improving-Diagnosis-in-Healthcare.aspx
http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2015/Improving-Diagnosis-in-Healthcare.aspx
https://accenet.org/about/Pages/ClinicalEngineer.aspx
https://accenet.org/about/Pages/ClinicalEngineer.aspx


J Global Clinical Engineering Vol.2 Issue 1, 2019  2

So, while we still debating how many CEs a technology 
life-cycle program should optimally has or how many 
CEs the world needs - I believe that it is unanimously 
clear that in order to deliver the value of our profession 
to improve global health systems outcomes these pro-
fessionals must be well prepared, ethically committed, 
competent and professionally credentialed.

I look forward to your comments.

Together we can lead the move from 
Health to Wealth!

Dr. Yadin David

Copyright © 2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY): Creative Commons - 
Attribution 4.0 International - CC BY 4.0. The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright 
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is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

http://www.globalce.org
http://www.globalce.org

