EBME Forums Forums Management Training Do you have a Trainer?

I was wondering what sort of percentage of departments are now carrying out training.

Does your department carry out equipment training that meets the CNST requirements?

Do you have a Trainer? single choice
	YES
	NO
Votes accepted starting: 01/01/70 1:00 AM You must vote before you can view the results of this poll.

Call me old fashioned, John, but I always thought the job was fixing the kit!

Seriously, though, most NHS hospitals appear to have relatively well-resourced (funded, and staffed by earnest young ladies) Training Departments. Why not leave it to them, and stick with our core business? Nurses don’t fix kit yet, do they?

Geoff, I'd bee inclined to agree. I think the training should be left to those best positioned to monitor and evaluate the progress of staff ooperating these devices. This effectively can only, and must remain at ward/clinic level.

EBME-tasks should be to mantain the bit of kit, providing user guides/instructions and update as necessary.

Chris - isn't training staff the same as providing the user with instructions? As was rightly pointed out, our job is to fix kit - by training the users how to operate equipment correctly you can eliminate many common faults, ie. finger faults!
Training sessions normally allow 2-way conversations between technicians and clinicians which also, in my opinion, give a very useful insight into how equipment is used and why failures might occur.

I think that kit is getting to the stage where we do not need qualified technicians to carry out repairs. Black box replacing. The time has come for us to realise that we must change with the times. I believe we are responsible for management of equipment and part of that is training users.

My view is that qualified individuals, i.e. trained, qualified and experienced to a minimum level, are always required if safety, or the prevention of accidents, is an issue e.g. mains power, pressurised gases, working in critical areas giving advice/intervention on equipment connected to patients (Clinical Support) involved and where individuals carry an element of responsibility for their own actions i.e. they work technically unsupervised with the potential to do harm. This includes Training and Management roles in my opinion.

The implication of non-technically qualified staff being acceptable alternatives to technicians formally trained in electronics, physics, physiological measurements, clinical technology and suchlike, as most are currently, would be ridiculous. It is not acceptable to have any non-technically qualified individuals providing repairs, technical support, training or managing equipment if they are not technically qualified in some way as a means to demonstrate technical ability, technical understanding or a technical appreciation of equipment (actually a lot of medical devices are considered safety critical systems).

Whether qualified technicians should move-on into Management and Training roles, exclusively, leaving the non-technically qualifed staff to do minor repairs or safety testing, for example, is another issue. In my experience, it is likely that most qualified and experienced technicians are already involved in the provision of training, technical advice, clinical support and an element of equipment management expertise to clincal areas, on an informal ad-hoc basis, in many cases. Unfortunately It's not up to employees like ourselves to decide what service we provide but it's up to the employer to decide what service is required and fully resource the service if that's what they want.

The customer does not necessarily wish to be provided with the most appropriate service because it costs money, involves overheads in management and physical resources, depsite the obvious advantages. What we do need to do is ensure the workforce is up to doing this role on a more formal basis if required i.e. coordinated, consistent, formalised training across the board and try to be effective management that is recognised and empowered to actually manage equipment in the most appropriate, effective, manner, safely.

Besides technical roles what non-technical roles (they cannot be called technical or graded as technicians if skill, qualifications and duties that are technical are not involved), not just necessarily academic ones, can be performed by non-technically qualified individuals working in EBME and Medical Physics?

A number of hospitals have practice development trainers and they are responsible for organising training of nursing staff. These trainers are normally trained nurses and as such have both technical and nursing experience and I feel that they are best qualified to train the end user i.e. the nurses in both the use and application of the device. These individuals have received their training and competancy from the prodcut specialist trainers.

As far as training is concerned, it is important to reduce 'no fault found' scenarios. I personally think that we should have some involvement in the training management, and the trainer for infusion and monitoring devices should be part of the team. Looking at the survey, from those of us who voted we have a slight majority on 'we do train'.

As far as using unqualified staff to assist in carrying out maintenance under close supervision - we already do. We are also not unique. Our technical assistant has been trained to carry out basic maintenance functions - she does it very well. There will always be a requirement for suitably qualified staff, but i think there will be a trend to using less qualified or unqualified staff. This is happening in other fields such as nursing, IT.

Richard, as usual I applaud your stand, you are a proud and committed warrior so be proud ...But, Hmm,,,,John is closer to the truth than you think. As usual I can only speak from my own personal experience so let me elaborate. In my 24 months out of Blighty I have personally noticed an overwhelming trend in "black box relacement" by lesser qualified “vendor employed” personnel, (I could never class these humble bods as technicians in any verse, song or play) although all said and done, they know exactly what they are doing and they do it well.....… right or wrong that is not the point.. The plain truth is that there is a “BIG WIDE WORLD” outside of the UK that does not, and never will have the benefit of highly trained and knowledgeable Eng/Techs.

For many years now the powers that be. i.e. the manufacturers (who the majority, unfortunately are not British) have had to develop service techniques to keep their users sweet. For the benefit of their souls. And I can only speak for my self (although many technically employed expats must have seen this coming yeons ago). It works, it works only to well. Not just here in the Middle East but I hear the same talk from my American, And Oceana colleagues, not just biomed but people involved in most other technical fields.

John you have years experience, you are no fool, yep…we think you have hit thy nail directly on thy head. Only an ostridges would disagree.

LIII