Knowing what healthcare requires and the primary aim of a hospital being ''patient care'', it's needful for hospitals to see Clinical Engineering (CE) as a business unit whose services are defined by the scope of the hospital's mission.

 

CE conducts both scheduled activities – performance assurance and preventive maintenance and unscheduled activities, including pre-purchase evaluation of products and services, repair and emergency response.

 

 

As long as people get ill and injured, there will be doctors. And as long as clinical devices break down and wear out, there will be equipment service people. Right? Then, the question goes - WHO IS GOING TO MAINTAIN/FIX YOUR MEDICAL EQUIPMENT? When an equipment breaks down, the first thing that comes to mind is "WHO IS TO FIX IT?" The pressure mounted by the beneficiaries of the equipment often make the user (the operator or the management) to reach out to the nearby technician or engineer, forgetting to ask the question "WHAT TYPE OF EQUIPMENT IS TO BE FIXED?" The inability of making these distinctions has led to many equipment being damaged beyond repair. Doctors and Nurses are to diseases as Engineers and Technicians are to equipment faults. 

 

The type of disease and where it affects tells the type of doctor(s) to consult, likewise the type of fault and equipment tells the type of engineer or technician to consult. A disease in a human being is taken to a human doctor, while the same type of disease in an animal is taken to a veterinary doctor. In like manner, a fault in communication equipment is taken to a communication engineer. 

 

You may ask, ''what's unique about Healthcare, compared with say, broadcasts (e.g. radio, video, television, etc) and computer? Here is the answer – Healthcare requires specialization, the existing quality standards and the emphasis on cost efficiency. The equipment is more complex. 

 

Everything must be perfect, because people's lives and well-being are on the line. If you have a spot or a blemish on television CRT, it is nowhere near as critical as it would be if the tube were to be used for some medical applications (e.g. Ultrasonography).