A Bio-Medical Equipment Technician (BMET) is a highly skilled technologist that ensures that medical equipment is serviceable, safe, and properly configured.
Primary Responsibilities:
- The BMET installs, inspects, repairs, and calibrates medical equipment.
- The BMET is a highly skilled technologist that ensures that medical equipment is serviceable, safe and properly configured.
- The BMET educates and advises staff and other agencies on theory of operation, basic physiological principles and safe clinical application of biomedical equipment maintaining the facility’s patient care and medical staff equipment.
- Entry level BMET’s enter into the field with a two year associate’s degree in biomedical equipment technology, or they can spend about one year in full-time military training. A four year graduate is an applied engineer who can perform the same medical equipment management duties as a clinical engineer BMET Manager. The BMET must get their experience through an internship.
A highly skilled technician that is able to install equipment for hospitals requires a lot of professional training and most BMET’s get their training in the military. The private sector has just recently started training men and women for the position. The BMET not only installs and repairs the equipment but must be able to teach the hospital staff how to properly use the equipment. The staff and other medical personnel must be taught the basic physiological principles, and safe clinical application of biomedical equipment maintaining the facility’s patient care and medical staff equipment. The acceptance of biomedical equipment technician entered the private sector in 1970 after Ralph Nader a consumer advocate wrote an article in which he claimed that over 1,200 people a year are killed by electrical shock in hospitals. The relationship of proper use of the equipment and proper training was not being provided. It was high time that men and women who were properly trained started training the private sector so they could use the biomedical equipment safely on patients.
The military members entering the BMET career field receive comprehensive down to the component level and theory technical training. The training provided by the military no matter what branch of service you were enlisted was very specific and intense. Now that the training has gone to the private sector Aims Community College took over the training for civilians can also get proper training in being a BMET. The training is very good but a man or women needs to go to one of the military academy in order to get the intense training that it takes to know how to do all the things needed for biomedical equipment. The equipment must be made safe and properly configured before it is used on a patient. The BMET must calibrate the equipment to the right degree so that it does not take in too much electricity in order to operate. The patient’s life depends on the way the BMET installs and calibrates the biomedical equipment. When the equipment is not running properly it takes BMET personnel to fix the equipment. It takes a professional BMET that is certified with experience to repair the equipment and test it to make sure that it is working in proper order. After all now the equipment will need to be recalibrated and set to the right sequences before you can use the equipment on the patients.
There are different areas of biomedical equipment technology which are:
- Radiographic
- Fluoroscopic x-ray
- Diagnostic ultrasound
- Lasers
- Mammography
- Telemedicine
- Film image processing
- Nuclear Medicine
- Gamma cameras
- Positron emission tomography (PET)
- Medical imaging
- Computed Tomography (CT)
- Electron microscope
- Picture archiving and communication systems (PACS)
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging instrument (MRI scanner)
- Physiological monitoring
- Sterilization
- Dental
- Optometry
- Surgical
- Anesthesia
- Laboratory
- Dialysis
- Respiratory Services (ventilators)
- Computers and Information Technology connected with any of the above equipment.
The BMET field is diversified in accordance with the equipment and the type of engineering skills needed in order to be able to install and repair the biomedical equipment. BMETs work closely with Medical personnel to obtain parts, supplies, and equipment and even closer with facility management to coordinate equipment installations requiring certain facility requirements.