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Global Clinical Engineering Journal has been dedi-
cated to encourage the sharing of knowledge and the 
publication of engineering and scientific work in the 
clinical engineering field. In our continuous efforts we 
are initiating a new section of our Global Clinical Engi-
neering journal www.GlobalCE.org we call Book Review. 
We hope that you will professionally gain from it and at 
the same time promote the submission of such reviews 
for the benefit of all our readers.  

Clinical Engineering Handbook 
Second Edition

Editor-in-Chief: Ernesto Iadanza
ISBN 978-0-12-813467-2
Academic Press, Elsevier

Published 2020
Our first book review is about the Elsevier Academic 

Press newly published Clinical Engineering Handbook 
second edition with Ernesto Iadanza as editor-in-chief. 
Mr.  Iadanza is Adjunct Professor in the University of 
Florence, Italy. He is currently also the IFMBE Health 
Technology Assessment Division chairman. Following 
the reach of the first edition of this handbook, the second 
edition provides expanded coverage of the wide spectrum 
of technology-related responsibilities that the modern 
clinical engineering field is tasked with. This handbook 
contains over 900 pages of content that, while it may 
range in its importance level, is all pertinent to every 
practitioner in the clinical engineering and healthcare 
technology management field. The handbook consists 
of 13 sections and 127 chapters. The long list of section 
editors and chapter contributors made up of academi-
cians and practitioners, that together, represents an 
authoritative view of the current state of subject matter 
that each of them covered. 

As noted in the Foreword written by Adriana Ve-
lazquez, Senior Advisor on Medical Devices, World Health 
Organization (WHO) “This book is a major contribution 
to the evolution of the profession itself, and serves as a 
call to institutional leaders to look to clinical engineering 
to expand the professional capabilities that healthcare 
systems need worldwide as they grapple with the often 
overwhelming complexities, always keeping the end-
user perspectives of patients, and healthcare workers’ 
needs globally.” 

The purpose of this handbook is noted in the intro-
duction as “to provide a body of knowledge to all clinical 
engineers who intend to practice their profession.” Indeed, 
the extended coverage of the handbook provides well 
for the many phases of the technology life cycle and for 
the professional practice guidelines. These subjects are 
fundamental for those who already manage the health-
care technology and a ‘must read’ for those who enter 
the field. For those who are at their mid-career practice, 
they stand to benefit from reading this handbook in 
preparation for their next career step. 

Handbook organization that covers such a large 
scope of many career roles and tasks within the clinical 
engineering discipline can be structured in different 
styles. The style selected here could have been improved 
upon if, for example, Section 1 on Clinical Engineering 
would have been restructured so that chapters on Open-
source medical devices and the RFID technology been 
reassigned into Section 7 on Medical devices, allowing 
for more logical grouping of a single subject matter. Few 
other similar restructurings of chapters’ subject location 
should have been considered. Also regarding the style, 
some of chapters offer the benefit of “further reading” 

Book Review
By Y. David
Editor-in-Chief, GlobalCE Journal

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


J Global Clinical Engineering Vol.2 Issue 2, 2019  38

segment that is very useful, but unfortunately, it is not 
uniformly incorporated throughout the book.

As one of the authors within the long list of colleagues 
who contributed material for this handbook, I personally 
witnessed the great deal of effort and burden that the 
editor-in-chief lived with over the couple of years that it 
took to make this second edition a reality. It is significant 
accomplishment and can easily serves as the main “go 
to” source about the clinical engineering field and be 
part of every library and healthcare related academic 
programs resource. Everyone that will examine the list 
of experts that contributed material for the handbook is 
surely to be overwhelmed with their knowledge of the 
subject matter, with their ability to present clear and 
easy to read content, and of the many locations around 
the world they represent. The contribution of so many 
well-known experts is making this handbook unique.   

It is a challenge to produce a resource that can encom-
passes the vast volume of information like that which 
is contained with an encyclopedia and simultaneously 
keep the depth of each of the individual subjects being 
addressed at reasonable level. This handbook is suc-
cessful in its ability to offer expansive coverage of sub-
ject matters while at the same time reaching sufficient 
depth to help educate the reader. In my review I found 
this characteristic of the handbook to be uniquely and 
properly done. 

You can find the handbook at https://www.el-
sevier.com/books/clinical-engineering-handbook/
iadanza/978-0-12-813467-2 at the current discounted 
price of US $170.00.  It is unfortunate since this cost is 
considered a far reach by many in the low resources’ 
regions of the world where such a handbook stands to 
make the most impact. I hope that the publisher will 
take this dilemma into consideration.

Copyright © 2021. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY): Creative Commons - Attribu-
tion 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 owner(s) 
are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is 
permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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http://www.globalce.org
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