Medical Electronics

Medical equipment  (also known as  armamentarium ) is designed to aid in the  diagnosis , monitoring or treatment of  medical conditions . Types Diagnostic equipment includes medical imaging machines, used to aid in diagnosis. Examples are ultrasound and MRI machines, PET and CT scanners, and x-ray machines. Treatment equipment includes infusion pumps, medical lasers and LASIK surgical machines. Life support equipment is used to  maintain  a patient's bodily function. This includes medical ventilators, incubators, anaesthetic machines, heart-lung machines, ECMO, and dialysis machines. Medical monitors allow medical staff to measure a patient's medical state. Monitors may measure patient vital signs and other parameters including ECG, EEG, and blood pressure. Medical laboratory equipment automates or he...

Education Licensure/certification Biomedical engineers require considerable knowledge of both engineering and biology, and typically have a Bachelor's (B.Tech, B.S) or Master's (M.S., M.Tech, M.S.E., or M.Eng.) or a Doctoral (Ph.D.) degree in BME (Biomedical Engineering) or another branch of engineering with considerable potential for BME overlap. As interest in BME increases, many engineering colleges now have a Biomedical Engineering Department or Program, with offerings ranging from the undergraduate (B.Tech,B.S., B.Eng or B.S.E.) to doctoral levels. Biomedical engineering has only recently been emerging as  its own discipline  rather than a cross-disciplinary hybrid specialization of other disciplines; and BME programs at all levels are becoming more widespread, including the Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering which actually includes so much biological science content that many students use it as a "pre-med" major in preparation for medical s...

Regulatory issues have been constantly increased in the last decades to respond to the many incidents caused by devices to patients. For example, from 2008 to 2011, in US, there were 119 FDA recalls of medical devices classified as class I. According to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Class I recall is associated to "a situation in which there is a reasonable probability that the use of, or exposure to, a product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death"  Regardless of the country-specific legislation, the main regulatory objectives coincide worldwide. For example, in the medical device regulations, a product must be: 1) safe  and  2) effective and 3) for all the manufactured devices A product is safe if patients, users and third parties do not run unacceptable risks of physical hazards (death, injuries, …) in its intended use. Protective measures have to be introduced on the devices to reduce residual risks at acceptable level...

Clinical engineering is the branch of biomedical engineering dealing with the actual implementation of medical equipment and technologies in hospitals or other clinical settings. Major roles of clinical engineers include training and supervising biomedical equipment technicians (BMETs), selecting technological products/services and logistically managing their implementation, working with governmental regulators on inspections/audits, and serving as technological consultants for other hospital staff (e.g. physicians, administrators, I.T., etc.). Clinical engineers also advise and collaborate with medical device producers regarding prospective design improvements based on clinical experiences, as well as monitor the progression of the state of the art so as to redirect procurement patterns accordingly. Their inherent focus on  practical  implementation of technology has tended to keep them oriented more towards  incremental -level redesigns and recon...

This is an  extremely broad category —essentially covering all health care products that do not achieve their intended results through predominantly chemical (e.g., pharmaceuticals) or biological (e.g., vaccines) means, and do not involve metabolism. A medical device is intended for use in: the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. Class I devices present minimal potential for harm to the user and are often simpler in design than Class II or Class III devices. Devices in this category include tongue depressors, bedpans, elastic bandages, examination gloves, and hand-held surgical instruments and other similar types of common equipment. Class II devices are subject to special controls in addition to the general controls of Class I devices. Special controls may include special labeling requirements, mandatory performance standards, and postmarket surveillance. Devices in this class are typicall...

Tissue engineering Genetic engineering Neural engineering Pharmaceutical engineering Tissue engineering, like genetic engineering (see below), is a major segment of biotechnology - which overlaps significantly with BME. One of the goals of tissue engineering is to create artificial organs (via biological material) for patients that need organ transplants. Biomedical engineers are currently researching methods of creating such organs. Researchers have grown solid jawbones and tracheas from human stem cells towards this end. Several artificial urinary bladders have been grown in laboratories and transplanted successfully into human patients. Bioartificial organs, which use both synthetic and biological component, are also a focus area in research, such as with hepatic assist devices that use liver cells within an artificial bioreactor construct. Genetic engineering, recombinant DNA technology, genetic modification/manipulation (GM...

Biomedical engineering has existed for centuries. 1895:  Wilhelm Roentgen accidentally discovered that a cathode-ray tube could make a sheet of paper coated with barium platinocyanide glow, even when the tube and the paper were in separate rooms. Roentgen decided the tube must be emitting some kind of penetrating rays, which he called "X" rays. This set off a flurry of research into the tissue-penetrating and tissue-destroying properties of X-rays, a line of research that ultimately produced the modern array of medical imaging technologies and virtually eliminated the need for exploratory surgery. Major milestones 1791:  Luigi Galvani invented the frog galvanoscope. 1851:  Hermann von Helmholtz invented the ophthalmoscope. 1881:  Samuel von Basch invented the blood pressure meter (also known as sphygmomanometer). 1895:  Conrad Roentgen (Germany) discovered the X-ray using gas discharged tube...

Biomedical engineering  ( BME ) is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare purposes (e.g. diagnostic or therapeutic). This field seeks to close the gap between  engineering  and  medicine , combining the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to advance health care treatment, including  diagnosis ,  monitoring , and  therapy .  Biomedical engineering has only recently emerged as its own study, compared to many other engineering fields. Such an evolution is common as a new field transitions from being an  interdisciplinary  specialization among already-established fields, to being considered a field in itself. Much of the work in biomedical engineering consists of  research and development , spanning a broad array of subfields (see below). Prominent biomedical engineering applications include the development of  biocompa...