What manufacturing sector?
Fads and management-speak come and go, but (as I may have said before) there is nothing magical about the efficient engineering support and maintenance of in-service medical equipment. As with all tech support scenarios, it's just a matter of the persistent application of common sense (as it has been for the last 35 years). It's only the healthcare setting that makes it in any way "special".
And (as regards to technology), I'm not aware of any work being done in the Godfrey Hounsfield mould, nor indeed the Aberdeen MRI scanner, or anything on that scale. Britain doesn't
do R&D any more, it would seem. At best, medical technology will be dragging along on the coat-tails of others (even more so than it has done in the past).
But we can look forward to the continuing convergence of biomed and so-called "information technology", and more use being made of hand-held devices. Not only medical devices, but also in data gathering, equipment inventory checking, PM scheduling and such.
And, of course, we may expect more emphasis on equipment tracking
per se (RFID and all that).
Sadly, I see the role of the biomed tech continuing on its (downwards?) path of becoming less and less of a "hands-on fixit" role, to that of "asset manager". Or, at best, a kind of "technical first responder".
Even putting the brightest "spin" on it all that I can conjure, I can't help but believe that the best days of biomed are behind us (quite a few years back, in fact).
But you ask "on how best to develop departments for the future"? Are we talking about NHS biomed departments? If so, I believe that the best way to ensure "across the board" improvements (that is, in all hospitals, not just a few "centres of excellence") is to have it all farmed out on standardised O&M contracts of three years duration.
