Perhaps the most complex and technically challenging hospital environment is the ICU.
Traditionally, CEs have been involved in medical device evaluation, inspection, maintenance,
layout, design, and integration of the various instrumentation systems. As the
devices’ and systems’ complexity has increased over the years, clinical engineers have been
looked to as repositories of technical knowledge that is beyond that of the users (i.e., the
nurses and physicians). This requires maintaining a substantial level of expertise in the
physics and physiology of measurements and therapies; knowledge of computer operating
systems; networks and communications protocols; and the peculiarities of many different
instruments as well as an appreciation of ways to keep all of these systems in operation. The
many interactions and safety issues of the various monitoring and therapeutic instruments
must be understood and translated so that the CE can provide answers to questions posed
by the clinical staff, whose responsibility is the care of the patient, not the technology.